- Apocrypha by Christian Eichhorn (rules concerning star signs & hired hands)
- Death & Taxes by Christian Eichhorn (deuterocanonical lore concerning Schleswig)
- Black Powder Basics by I. McClung (rules concerning black powder weapons)
- The Tenebrous Reliquary by MÖRK BORG CULT (d66 items of doom)
- 2-Headed Basilisk of the 1 Trve Faith by Walton Wood (an inquisitor class)
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| Crown of Salt art by Tania Herrero |
Dramatis Personae
Dramatis Personae
Inquisitor Lygan
Inquisitor of the Church of the Two-Headed Basilisks of the One True Faith. Born under the sign of The Magus. Trained under the auspices of Inquisitor Abbiorn Hansen at the Grand Cathedral of Galgenbeck.
Under his charge
- Inquisitorial Zweihänder. A two-handed sword from the inquisitorial armoury.
- Basilisk Gun. A powerful black powder weapon, requiring two people to operate.
- The Basiliscus. A graven image of HE, worn as a medallion. Grants a boon in Presence to its wearer.
- Sacred scroll of Enochian Syntax. When successfully utilised, one creature blindly obeys a single command.
- Stone Magnets. A pair of magnetic stones that crackle and fizz when rubbed together. When the square stone is near danger, the round stone glows a dull orange. The stones can lie.
Faugno
Lygan’s Porter. Employed at the rate of two silver per day.
Ivanov
A brawler from Galgenbeck, hired by Lygan to operate the Basilisk gun. Employed at the rate of six silver per day.
Leonid
Also a brawler from Galgenbeck, hired by Lygan to operate the Basilisk gun. Employed at the rate of six silver per day.
Felian
The co-proprietor of the tavern The Jug & Crown, in the town of Saltburg. Operated with his wife, Verna.
Verna
The co-proprietor of the tavern The Jug & Crown, in the town of Saltburg. Operated with her husband, Felian.
Liselotte
The Lion’s Maiden. Daughter of farmers in the outskirts of Schleswig.
Fergus Fergusson
Monster hunter, famous for several successful novels about his deeds, and his short stature.
Drathamar
Disfigured, with a once-beautiful face burned by acid. Left his crumbling state in Schleswig to pursue a legend.
Rateater
Reptilian spawn raised in the sewers of Galgenbeck. His mind is not the sharpest, but his daggers are.
Prologue
Your superiors clearly see promise in you. That snivelling halfwit Belum and that gods damned shuffling cleric’s son Niduk had been set to nothing-tasks and obvious busy-work searching the cellars for scrolls that don’t exist and following rumours which led their arses to their noses. But you, proud son of a noble house, were singled out from amidst the slow and the servile; given a task befitting your station and your capabilities. A righteous and holy task.
The coffers of the Inquisition are deep, and they were unfalteringly opened to you. You almost blushed at the size of the purse given to you, but you did not hesitate. You outfitted yourself with the finest arms and relics as would befit a quest, nay, a crusade such as this. And then, your glorious retinue set forth with the blessing of the Arch-Priestess herself (your superiors assured you). Hushed citizens bowed their heads in reverence as you passed along the fish markets of Brine Street and through the Salt Gate, leaving the city, heading East for the river and the sea.
You and your party adapt as best you can to the conditions. You learned quickly to take care to keep your provisions and weapons sheltered from the worst of it. Faces, hands, any exposed flesh is covered by what scraps of material you can spare.You, however, take a secret delight in the scouring, searing, salt-laced winds. This is the way a true Inquisitor is forged. This is the stuff legends are born of. And it is a legend that you seek.
A local rumour, a provincial yarn. That is how it began. It spread as these things do, through trading post and tavern, until the rumour grew into a tale. With time and talk (what else have these rustic rubes to do but talk and exaggerate?) the tale grew wings and a mythic shadow. Brigands and mercenaries began to smell silver in its lustrous cloak. Many a vile-hearted sell-sword and purse-slitting cur drifted into the shadow of this tale. And if the tale is to be taken as truth, none returned alive. Slowly the crystallised corpses piled higher and higher, and as they did, the Salt Plains of Grift became the locus of a legend. And this legend, as all legends do, aroused the attention of the Inquisition.
How did it go again? Oh yes.
There is a church in the depths of the Salt Plains. A forgotten temple, consecrated to a benevolent and righteous god. It was desecrated by an arrogant and ruthless king. The blood of the faithful dyed his steel red. Before fading from the memory of men the god cursed the defiler to become a hated and repulsive being that would poison and corrode everything he touched, imprisoning him with only his crown to remind him of all he had lost. People call him and the Cantigaster and everyone knows his story. The god shed his tears over the valley, transforming it into a wasteland of salt and misery.
The god, the church, the king, the crown. These words now sound over and over in the crunch of your heel upon the crust of the Plain. They are conspicuously absent from the Great Histories in the Grand Archive of the Inquisitorial Libraries. This can not be allowed. The scribes will not tolerate it. Your superiors commanded you to strike at the heart of this legend. For it reeks of heresy. And should heresy it prove to be, you have been tasked with tearing it out, root, branch and stem.
The light is fading. You have been lost in your thoughts for hours. Days. The only sound the crunch of salt crust beneath your feet and the wind’s arch and aching moan. Dimming whiteness fades to sullen grey all around. If light were a liquid this would be mercury. If wind had a voice this would be grief redoubled.
You look up from your salted steps, your brined thoughts and cannot at first tell what you are seeing. Does the ground rise slightly up ahead? Are those… lights? Those are… buildings. Is…
A lone, wind-scoured signpost bears witness to the wonder:
Welcome to Saltburg. Capital of the Salt Plains.
A half dozen or so small buildings stand huddled together, their backs scoured raw by the relentless salt winds whose progress is hindered by neither rock nor tree for a hundred leagues or more in any direction. What soot-blacked fiend from the deepest pit could imagine a more lonesome or loathsome promontory upon which to maroon these poor, foul dregs of humanity?
It is the most beautiful and welcome sight you have seen since the wax dried on the seal of your holy orders.
Now your work may begin.
Beckoning his porter and gun-crew to keep close, Inquisitor Lygan studies the buildings of Saltburg to ascertain what they are. In particular, he looks for a town hall, a religious centre, or public house, where information, supplies and lodgings may be acquired.
Through the salt-rimed gloaming, the town takes shape before you. You pass through the eroding gates of Saltburg and see a scattering of homes. Standing among them are several larger buildings and businesses. The influx of glory seeker’s silver brought by the legend of the church on the Plains has allowed several of them to almost prosper.
The only two storied building in the town, and the largest by far, stands in the centre. It is the tavern, the Jug and Crown. The windows glow with welcoming light and you find yourself practically salivating at the thought of a meal, a pint and a bed.
Abutting the tavern stands a low building with a different sign. The Safe and Sagacious advertises itself as an equipment store. A small Dovecot stands, nestled in a wall running from the edge of the tavern. The outer wall of the town, the gate you passed through, is flanked by two buildings, The Good Offence and The Best Defence. They appear to be a weapon shop and an armour shop. Anvils outside each appear to indicate that both may offer overlapping services.
"Come, men. Let us visit the Jug and Crown here and see what may be gleaned therein!"
The hinges on the door are wide leather straps. You imagine there isn’t enough oil in all of Galgenbeck to keep a metal hinge from corroding out in these wastes. Even still, the door creaks and groans as you push your way inside the tavern.
The main room of the tavern is low ceilinged and pleasantly warm. A well-fed fire crackles in a large hearth opposite the bar. The bar itself is made from rough hewn boards, worn down to a polish by decades of use. Several stools are pushed up against it, looking out of place in their newness.
Behind the bar stands a portly, greying man, with bushy, almost calcified moustaches and heavy stubble. Behind him is an open door, faint kitchen sounds emanating from within. The barman is polishing a glass. He raises his voluminous, salt-curled eyebrows at your entrance then nods his head.
Several small tables are clustered around the hearth, occupied by weather-beaten and salt-dried folk. They do not acknowledge your entrance as the barman did. This marks them out to you as locals.
A larger table sits in the centre of the room, four of its six seats occupied by people definitely foreign to this place. Their talk interrupted by your entrance. Their heads turn briefly to take you and your party in before turning back and recommencing their low conversation.
“Evening masters!” Calls the barman, then turns and calls through a door behind him, leading into what you assume is a kitchen:
“Verna! There’s a handful more guests just joined us.”
He turns back to you.
“Now then gentlemen, I expect the road has been long. How may we service thee tonight?”
A large crow swoops low from the rafters and lands on the bar
“Liar” it croaks “Liar”.
Lygan narrows his eyes and studies the inhabitants of the tavern. He glares at the bird in particular with raised interest.
The barkeep looks confused for a moment, then with a start notices the bird.
“Oh ‘im! Pay ‘im no mind sir, we pay ‘im so little we barely notice ‘im these days. E’s been ‘ere long as anyone can remember. Tis my belief that ‘e belonged to someone now lost in the Rifts and is waitin’ for ‘is master to return.”
The bird fixes him with a beady eye and croaks “Liar.”
“Tis all he’ll say!” Chuckles the barkeep.
“Doesn’t half undermine confidence in the establishment now, does it?” He says with a laugh.
“Now,” he places his hands on the bar and smiles a broad, cracked-lip, smile.
“What’ll it be?”
They have the look of mercenaries. Seasoned sell-swords bound for glory and death.
One is an older man, with a long beard and moustaches. A ghastly wound splits his balding skull. A piece of horn or bone appears embedded in the scar tissue.
Sitting next to him is a man who… perhaps once, would have been considered quite beautiful. But his features are mottled, his skin scorched. Wisps of what was clearly once a lustrous mane cling to the back of his head.
Opposite these two sits a woman in full plate. Her helm sits next to her on the table and she rests her elbow on it. You notice with some interest that there is a zweihänder leaned against the table next to her. It is plainer than yours, adorned only with a lion’s head on the pommel, but you note that the leather bindings of the handle are bright with use. She looks most formidable.
And finally, next to her, strangest of all, is a reptilian humanoid. Its body is recognisably human, but its head is serpentine with spiked ridges and its tongue is long, forked and highly active in the air.
The barkeep continues with his patter: “Perhaps a fortifying meal and a frothy pint and then, might I venture, a soft bed? As fates would ‘ave it we have we ‘ave space above to fit you and your porters most comfortably, your eminence”
“Liar.” Croaks the crow.
“Oh away you flamin’ nuisance!” he gasps with exasperation, swiping at the bird. It flies indignantly back up to its original perch above a wall sconce.
You note the word he used, ‘eminence’. Clearly this barkeep has a sharp eye and has observed the graven image around your neck as a mark of your holy orders.
“We ‘ave special prices for members of the cloth such as yourself…” he murmurs sycophantically.
“Liar” The crow caws moodily from its vantage point.
"Then Holy Verhu's Truth is known in these parts?"
“Oh why certainly, master! While there’s many a varied adherent come through these parts seeking fame and riches out on the Salt Plains, me and my wife Verna keep observances of the one Truth Faith and none else.”
He points to a small carving of HE on a shrine nestled among the dusty bottles on a shelf next to the door of the kitchen.
“Now why don’t I pour you and your men some lovely frothy pints, and you have seat right here on my lovely new stools? Arrived fresh from Grift not ten days ago they did!”
The barkeep reaches down four tankards from hooks about the shelf and walks towards a large wooden keg at the far end of the bar.
Lygan calls after him.
"Yet I do not see a church nor chapel to HE in Saltburg, sir."
He begins filling the tankards.
"No indeed. Sad state of affairs..."
His face lights up, a thought coming to him,
“Perhaps you could petition your holy order to send us a priest so that we may build and consecrate one? We’re only few folk clinging to these salty rocks, but what a light that would bring to us!”
He places the four overflowing tankards down on the bar.
“There you are gents, wet your parched lips!”
Well used to your command and rebuke from days of wearying travel with you, your men stay their hands from snatching up the glistening tankards, but you can tell they are being tested to their limits, like dogs left to guard a fresh kill: the allure of fresh meat and the threat of a beating vying for dominance in their hearts.
Lygan nods at the tankards.
The party at the table fall silent, they eye you with what appears to be considerable interest, but it is the barkeep who speaks:
“Why HE be praised, a Holy Inquisitor! ‘Ere! In my humble tavern! Thunder strike me dead, what an honour, what an honour! These beverages my Lord,”
He bows low at this, his obsequiousness drawing smirks from the party at the table,
“Are drafts of amber ale, imported from Tveland. ‘Tis brewed from the finest amber hops and pure river water. You’ve never seen the like and you’ll never taste its equal.”
“Certainly not if it’s brewed with Grift river water” the woman at the table mutters half under her breath, her comrades snorting into their tankards.
The barkeep fetches down a fifth tankard and fills it.
“If you’ll permit me, Lord, I’d like to drink a toast with ye,”
The woman at the table rolls her eyes. Her companions stifle giggles.
“To the success of your Holy quest to seek out heresy in these salt-damned lands!”
He raises his tankard. It hovers in the air, he waits for you to join the toast.
The stone’s colour remains flat and dull.
“Liar” caws the crow, to no one in particular.
“Shall we perhaps indulge ourselves in a little hospitality, my lord?” Faugno asks tactfully.
"Indulge, Faugno? Indulge? Know you not the wisdom of the Church? The road to salvation lies through mortification of the flesh, not through its indulgence. I pay you to carry my supplies, not to offer your unsolicited ideas. Be silent."
Faugno looks downcast.
“As you say, sire” he says, glowering and scuffing the salt from his boot on the rough floor.
Lygan slips the Stone Magnets back into his pocket and glances at the bird, wholly ignoring the offer of drinks and the toast presented by the barkeep. He raises out a gloved hand to the crow, as if offering it a new perch.
The crow cocks its head at you, sizing you up, then glides silently over to your outstretched hand. It’s heavier than it looks, and fixes you again with its piercing eye.
“Liar.” It caws, as if in agreement.
“Oh very good sire, very good!” calls the barkeep.
“Now if you shan’t be drinking, and I respect that, I do, then I shall drink to ye! To health, to success and to the Holy Faith!”
He drinks deep of his tankard.
“Now friends,” He speaks to the party at the table
“I’ve four fresh pints with your names on them!”
The party at the table cheer merrily and the man with the cloven skull rises and fetches the drinks over to his table, leaving silver in their place on the bar.
On his way past he winks at you cheekily.
"I shall take this bird, barkeep. It may be wiser than many a man."
Lygan gently raises the bird to his shoulder, that it may sit upon it, then turns to look at the barkeep.
"Now, answer me this, sir: who is in charge of Saltburg?"
The crow hops deftly to your shoulder. It seems content with this arrangement.
“As you say sire, truth be told we’ll be glad to be rid of it! Doesn’t ‘alf cast an air of suspicion about the place, branding each and every soul within a liar!”
“As to who’s in charge, well you see ‘tis not like it is in largely towns or cities with mayors and magistrates. We all looks out for each other well enough and that’s enough for us!”
The barkeep casts a beaming smile around the room. What few scattered locals there are raise their tankards or knock them gently against their tables in agreement.
Lygan takes hold of the Basilicus medallion and holds it up from where it dangles over his sternum.
The barkeep lets out a gentle ahem. His warm and affable face calcifying into a grim countenance. He takes a slow, whistling breath through his teeth and his frame seems to enlarge by an inch all round. His hands have dropped under the bar and do not immediately return to sight. He drops his voice to something just above a murmur and he speaks with a quiet force, sounding like another man entirely.
"While I admire your... devotion, sire, I'm afraid that won't be happening."
Each word he utters is weighed and measured precisely. A silence has fallen in the tavern. Even the fire in the grate seems cowed.
"Should you be requiring food, drink or lodgings, you're perfectly entitled to pay for those services here in my inn and be welcome as are any who pass through these parts and conduct themselves with reasonable manners. If that's not to your liking, sire, well... it's a long and salty road back to Galgenbeck. I hope you and your thirsty, thirsty men have the stomach for it."
His eyes hold you with cold regard. His hands still do not rise above the level of the bar.
The room seems to contract with the tension.
The pained silence that follows your outburst and the inn-keeper's rebuttal is broken by a loud belch and the THONK of a drained tankard slamming down on a table. The woman in plate with the lion pommelled zweihänder stands, and pushes back her chair.
"No one wishes for bloodshed tonight, Inquisitor, but be warned you are dangerously close to it. Join my companions for a drink." She gestures to one of the empty seats next to her. Her tone indicates it is an instruction, rather than an invitation.
Lygan stares at the barkeep, then shifts his cold gaze to the woman in armour as she takes command of the situation. He holds his this look for a moment, then his face creases into a smirk, quickly replaced by a snort then a burst of unrestrained laughter. This lasts for a few seconds, then Lygan, wiping tears from his eyes, speaks.
"I really had you there, didn't I? But at least..."
He makes an open-handed gesture toward the woman.
"...at least we know who the true leader of Saltburg is, do we not?"
Lygan lets out one last note of mirth from his throat, before resuming his serious composure and tone of cold command. Lygan snaps his fingers at the barkeep.
"A drink and a meal for all my men, sir."
The barkeep’s face darkens one more shade towards violence. The world holds its breath. Then his face breaks into a grin. He exhales and the tension in the bar relaxes back to its former, cozy state. The fire purrs once more in the grate.
“Very good, sir, very good! Food and grog all round.”
He busies himself filling tankards and calls the food order through to the kitchen.
Lygan turns to his crew.
"Enjoy yourselves, men, but keep our Basilisk on a short leash."
Lygan strides over to the table of mercenaries.
"Gentlemen. Madam. I shall join you, if the offer holds true."
“Better a full belly than a broken jaw, eh?” The woman chuckles, slapping you on the back.
“I am Liselotte, the Lion’s Maiden.”
She gestures to the man with the bone protruding his skull, who raises his tankard and says “Fergus Fergusson, glad you saw sense there lad”
The man with the mottled face sneers a half grin and says “Drathamar”
Liselotte gestures to their reptilian companion,
“That’s Rateater. He doesn’t say much.”
With each introduction the bird caws softly in your ear:
“Liar.”
“And we do not yet know your name, Lord Inquisitor?” Says Liselotte expectantly.
As you say your name the crow caws softly into your ear, audible only to you:
“Liar.”
"Hush now, Corax. Let these people speak."
Her table-mates nod in assent.
“Now, Lygan, I can’t help but notice you carry the zweihänder also. Are you skilled in the arts?”
"Skilled? Not exactly. This is mostly a symbol of my inquisitorial office."
His eyes flick to the pommel of her sword.
"Tell me, Liselotte, whom is this Lion that thou art the Maiden of?"
Her face hardens.
“A story for another time.”
“She won’t tell us neither, brother” says Fergus Ferguson.
“So, you intend to face the rifts?” He asks, his voice rough but not unkind.
"Well now, that depends. What do you all know of the legend of the Cantigaster?"
Lygan's eyes scan the group.
Drathamar smiles a lop-sided smile. Rateater’s tongue tests the air with renewed interest. Liselotte watches you and Fergus, a smile playing on her salt-scarred lips.
Fergus chuckles.
“The legend goes that a wicked king defiled the church of an old god here in the wastes. The god drowned the land in his tears and cursed the king, his crown turning to salt, his name was forgotten. The story is compelling, is it not? Each seeks the king, the crown or some other part of the legend for their own reason.”
"And what do you all seek?" Lygan asks, once again scanning the faces around the table.
Fergus is the first to speak.
“I’m a monster hunter. In my youth ‘twas for the glory of it that I slaughtered beasts. With time I learned that glory doesn’t keep food on man’s plate, so I made a living of it and butchered them for silver. And now… I do it because I know nothing else. Old age is one foe I find I cannot best. I’m not as fast as I once was, or I wouldn’t have this Wyvern stinger stuck in me skull. So, I hear this legend and I think: fine! I’d rather die doing the only thing I’ve ever been good at, than live long enough to see the poorhouse. So I seek the head of the Cantigaster, or will allow it to claim mine. I tie my legend to his, one way or the other!” With this he raises his tankard with a tired chuckle and drains it.
The other three knock their tankards off the table approvingly.
Drathamar is next to speak. His voice is soft and tuneful. Were his looks intact you fancy he would have turned the head of any man or woman to cross his path.
“I was once steward of a fine estate in Schleswig…” he begins but then stops and sighs.
“No. If I am to tell my sorry tale I must tell it true. I was sole heir to a crumbling estate run into ruin by a syphilitic whore-monger. My education I stole from mildewed books and…”
He fixes you with a complex and sorrowful look, clearly weighing something up before continuing.
“Wayward priests. I discovered that books could give me what people could not. And along the way I developed a fascination for the tomes themselves, for each book has a face upon which is written its unique history, as mine is written upon my own. Among my reading I came across the legend of the Cantigaster, but one source also mentioned a certain Grimoire within possession of his retinue. This is what I seek. I would know why this particular tome accompanied the forgotten king, and learn both the knowledge it contains, and that which its face can tell.”
To everyone’s surprise it is Rateater who speaks next. He snaps his jaws together several times in quick succession then hisses:
“rrRaaaAATtzzz”
Stunned silence is followed by an outburst of guffaws.
“Do you know, I think that’s the most he’s said since I met him” remarks Liselotte.
“As for me, I am the daughter of farmers from a hamlet outside Schleswig.”
Her smile fades.
“They were butchered by a craven knight of Fathmu’s court”
She spits his name out as if it were poison.
“He was drunk and tried to rob us of what little silver we had so he could stay in his cups another day. When my father protested he split him in two with his zweihänder and then beheaded my mother. Most children would have run, or screamed, or shat their britches I suppose. Maybe I should have, but I, a child of twelve, took up the axe I split logs with every day, and I split that man’s brains in two with it. It is his armour I wear. It is his sword I carry. I seek only a worthy death, but so far it has eluded me.”
There is a respectful silence at the table.
“It would appear you got the story out of me after all. Fuck the king and his cunting court.”
She says with a grim smile and an obscene gesture, finishing her tankard and gesturing to the barkeep for another round.
“And you, Lygan? Who did you piss off to get sent to this infernal place?”
"I am sorry. About your parents."
“And I’m sorry about… Drathamar’s face” she says with a hearty laugh, deflecting your sincerity.
'In the history of the realm, never has there been such a quagmire of wickedness as Schleswig is today. With sad certainty, I must profess that the city has fallen. When devil worship is the least of a city’s sins, we must take up the torches and rinse it with fire. Burn it all, I say, return sanity to the few worthy survivors. For the Basilisks, in Josilfa’s name, just deeds await!'
"I believe the days of King Fathmu and his demon-infested court are numbered. But I digress. To answer your question: it was Inquisitor Abbiorn who sent me here, on the orders of the Arch-Priestess herself. If this legend of a church and a false god be true, then it is in the interest of the Inquisition to investigate. We will not tolerate profane idols, nor their worship, for there is but One True Faith. My men and I seek evidence of such a place, and the eradication of any sign of heresy that we may find therein. At the very least, we seek to add another chapter to our collected histories of the world, for any record of this legend is vexingly absent; I am here on the basis of hearsay alone."
Lygan turns to Fergus.
The older man places one hand on the table and strokes his beard with the other.
“I’ve been as far into the Salt Plains as you have, but from what I have gleaned from the townsfolk, what we seek lies not on the surface of the salt crust, but beneath it. The legend says that the defiled church was in a valley, and this false god of yours flooded the valley with its tears at the desecration of its altar, causing the valley to fill a lake to form. The salt of the tears hardened the water into the crust we now walk upon. But it is said that the crust is not solid through, and time and the wind have carved here and there rifts and channels in the salt, leading to caverns below and whatever remains of the church and the forgotten king.”
He looks into the fire and you see there, written upon his face, the strength of the youth who slew beasts for the glory alone.
“Many a foul fiend down there I’d wager. I’ll test their mettle before I’m through.”
Lygan studies the old man's face for a moment, then looks around to the others.
"Do you all plan to travel into these caverns?"
“We reached an accord earlier,” says Liselotte
“We each seek the same place if not the same thing. We shall watch each other’s backs for as long as our individual paths allow it.”
"Does your accord have room for another?" Lygan asks.
He then glances over at Leonid, Ivanov and Faugno.
"Or perhaps another four?"
Fergus seems about to agree heartily but Drathamar leans in before he can and says in a low voice:
"It does. Particularly if the basilisk you mentioned earlier is what I suspect it might be..."
Lygan chuckles, then turns to face Liselotte.
"And you, Lion's Maiden?"
“If your men are as suited to violence as they appear, and you can swing that zweihänder true when the time comes, then you are welcome. But don’t expect to be carried.”
"Some day, I intend to be. Servants shall carry me on a gilded litter through the streets of Cathedral's Shadow: 'Make way, make way for the Grand Inquisitor of Galgenbeck, he who purged the world of false faith!' they shall proclaim to the sound of trumpets, as the thronging crowds throw down their coats before me. But for now, I shall walk on my own two legs. Very well. It is agreed. When do you set out?"
"Dreams of idleness make an idle mind" chides Fergus Fergusson personably.
"We set out at daybreak, although we'll wait an hour if you wish to see the armourers or the provisioner of the town."
Lygan nods.
"Very well. Now, I hunger and thirst. I shall speak to the barkeep about a meal and a room. Excuse me, friends."
Lygan rises from the table and strides over to the bar.
"Good sir!" he addresses the keep.
"I crave your pardon, for my earlier jape. My zeal for the One True Faith oftentimes clouds my better judgement. Pray, what is your name?"
The barkeep spreads his hands across the bar and leans forward magnanimously. No trace of the violent undercurrent which threatened to surface remains.
"Tis a poor man indeed who can't accept an apology that's been offered, and on that score I consider myself rich indeed. We'll say no more about it. Felian Altomonte is my name good sir. Now, how may I be of assistance?"
"I wish to eat and drink, and require a room for four. I would also have you tell me, if you will, what there is to be told of Saltburg, and what you know of the Cantigaster legend?"
He wipes his hands on a greasy cloth and smiles.
"Very good sir. Every day there's chicken. When the chicken's done there's chicken bone soup. It's two silver coins for a meal and a pint, and a room costs one silver coin.
"Of the legend, I must confess I knows little. Forgive my dropping of eaves, but your new companions there have told you more than I know already, it's been a most educational evening!"
"Of Saltburg there is little much to tell that differs from any other small village. The armourer and the weaponsmith won't talk to each other, no one remembers why. The guard, yes we has a guard to ensure safety and civility, has a habit of dozing in the lee of the village wall. The dovecot will send messages anywhere you can think of, and also has a small stable should you desire a more comfortable return journey. Mind you they'll only rent horses to go between here and their office in Grift or Galgenbeck. Amalia the provisioner has everything you could need, and you'd be wise to ask her what she thinks you'll be needin', as she's the only one of us what's been near the rifts at all. And that's about it!"
"What is the basis of Saltburg's economy? If you'll pardon my saying...this hardly seems like good farming land."
Felian gestures to you and your new companions.
"Mostly folks such as yourself. Silver from adventurers keen to make their name by killing a legend. That's why there's little else besides amenities and outfitters for such adventures."
"Speaking of silver" he says, reaching a tankard down for you, "that'll be two for the food and drink, and four for the rooms."
"You can't fit my men and I into one room?"
"The best I can do is two to a room, sir, in which case it’s four in total you owe me."
He calls your food order through to the kitchen and presents you with a freshly poured, foaming pint. He then pours one for himself and says:
"If you'll permit me, sir" and holds his tankard out in cheers.
Lygan picks up the pint and clacks it against Felian's.
Felian smiles warmly and takes a deep draw on his pint.
"That there's the good stuff right enough!"
"To the One True Faith, and the health of Josilfa Migol. May she live forever!"
Lygan knocks back his pint.
Just then Felian's wife Verna bustles out of the kitchen with a steaming bowl and sets it down in front of you.
"One order of chicken bone soup!"
She too bears the signs of many years' exposure to salt and wind, but her smile is warm and the soup smells delicious.
"Thank you, Madam. HE's blessing be upon you."
Lygan counts out the required silver and stacks it on the bar.
He hungrily eats the soup.
"Felian, might you have you ink, pen and parchment?"
Verna nods appreciatively and heads back into the room behind the bar. Felian scoops up the coins you laid on the bar and drops them into the front pocket of his apron.
"Certainly sire."
He hands you an ink pot and quill and a sheet of parchment which crackles with the salt permeating it.
Lygan nods his thanks and begins scrawling a letter.
"To Inquisitor Abbiorn Hansen,
I have arrived safely in the village of Saltburg, in the salt plains near Grift. My men and I are staying in the tavern called The Jug & Crown. We have allied ourselves with mercenaries in search of the church wherein this false god was once worshipped. No sign of heresy thus far. Tomorrow we shall search in the 'rifts': caverns beneath the salt wherein the church is supposedly buried. Be assured that all sign of heresies encountered shall be purged from the world, and any items of interest shall be returned to your person as soon as possible. Should I not return, let it be known that I died in dedicated and unwavering duty to the HE and SHE, to our Arch-Priestess Josilfa Migol, to the Church of the Two-Headed Basilisks and to the Holy Inquisition thereof. Verhu's blessing be upon you.
Inquisitor Lygan."
Lygan lets the ink dry, then rolls up the parchment.
"Felian, will you take this letter to the dovecot and have them send it to the Office of the Inquisition in Galgenbeck?"
“Very good sir. It’s two silver coins for the message. But if you’d rather verify that yourself, they’ll be open before dawn tomorrow morning.”
“Oh, which reminds me sir, will you be requiring a wake-up call?”
"Very well. I shall take the letter to the dovecot tomorrow. Yes, please, Felian: a wake-up call will be necessary. Tomorrow will be a long day, and we must not be left behind. Please, be so kind as to show my men and I to our rooms."
Lygan swigs the last of his ale and tips up the bowl of chicken-bone soup to swallow the dregs, then takes up the letter. He snaps his fingers towards his comrades and beckons them to finish up and follow him.
Your hired men look up from empty tankards with tired-stung eyes. They stand as if their bodies weighed double and shuffle after you.
Felian reaches down two keys from hooks behind him.
“Right you are sir, I shall wake you just before dawn. Here’s the room keys sir, it’s the two doors to the left at the top of the stair. I’ll be up presently with extra mattresses for those who’ll be sleeping on the floor.”
Lygan follows Felian's instructions and locates their rooms. Assigning the two brawlers and the artillery piece to one, he takes the other with Faugno. Once settled, he makes preparations for sleep.
The day has been long, and the effects of the hot meal and strong ale soon see you drifting pleasantly into a deep and dreamless sleep.
You wake to a gentle rapping on your door, refreshed but still aching for more sleep.
Felian’s voice sounds from the hall, soft but audible.
“Begging your pardon sir but tis just before dawn, as requested this is your wake up call.”
You hear him move off down the hall to deliver similar messages to other guests.
“Liar” calls Corax sleepily after him.
Lygan sits up, rubbing his eyes. He quickly dons his robes and accoutrements.
"Come, Faugno. Let us get moving. The Holy Inquisition is counting on the success of our mission. Here's your payment."
Lygan reaches into his pockets and hands two silver coins to the porter.
Faugno pulls on his outerwear over his sleep shirt,
“Right you are sire!” He says placing the silver in a leather drawstring pouch which hangs around his neck.
Lygan strides out of the door and knocks on the door of the brawlers' room.
The brawlers emerge, bleary but ready for what the day has in store.
"Good morning, men. Here is your daily payment."
Lygan hands them six silver coins each.
"Don your armour, take up your weapons and the gun. A hard day awaits us. Yet, the rewards shall no doubt be great, for we set out upon a holy quest! Let us away! FOR THE BASILISKS!"
The brawlers share a look then each pockets the money. Ivanov, the less laconic of the (though there’s not much in it) nods and throws a poor salute,
“Very good sir.”
Leonid grunts in affirmation.
Lygan strides downstairs into the taproom.
The room is much as you left it, though the chairs have been stacked on the tables and the floor has been swept. An eager fire burns in the hearth.
Felian and Verna are bustling round in the room behind the bar. Your four new companions stand, fastening bracers and adjusting packs.
“Thought you were to sleep till midday!” Calls Fergus merrily.
“We’ll leave in a half hour at the latest. Be sure you’re ready and be prepared for a march,”
"First, there is something to which I must attend."
Lygan turns to his hired men.
"Wait for me here. I will not be long."
Lygan heads out of the tavern towards the dovecote.
The dovecot is a squat building with a small stable standing next to it. The warm smells of animals and the soft sounds of their sleep greet you as you enter. There is a small table by the door, stacked with parchment and sacks. A tall man, much too tall for the room sits behind the table, running through a ledger with a quill tucked behind his ear. He glances up at you then returns his gaze to his ledger.
“What is it?” He asks tersely.
Lygan withdraws the letter he penned last night from his robe pocket.
"Good sir, I wish to send this note by carrier pigeon to the Office of the Holy Inquisition in Galgenbeck, the Greatest City that Ever Was!"
“Two silver” he says without looking up.
He holds out his hand while continuing to study the book in front of him.
Lygan surreptitiously opens the scroll tube that hangs from his belt and removes the scroll of Enochian Syntax. He unrolls this and reads the words thereon.
“You will not charge me for this service.”
The power wells up from the ink on your scroll, through your hands and into your eyes and voice. Sweat breaks on the man’s forehead. He nods, struggling against his nature. His hand remains outstretched.
Lygan rolls up the scroll and places it back in its leather tube. Then he places the letter in the man's hand.
“Was there something else?” He looks up, a slightly vague and lost look in his eyes.
"You have a stable here. How much do you charge for horses?"
“Ten silver to Grift, twenty to Galgenbeck.”
Lygan blinks a moment.
"I can't just buy a horse? Or rent one for an unspecified amount of time?"
“Do you have any idea how hard it is to keep a horse alive out here?”
He closes the ledger and rises, stepping out of the dovecot and walking to the stable.
"Not yet, no. But, do you know what? Forget about it. I prefer to walk. Do not forget to send that letter. Good day!"
He grunts and begins checking the shoes of the horses.
Lygan wanders back to the Jug & Crown.
Your seven companions are gathered outside the tavern, outfitted for the road. The people you met last night talk animatedly with your hired staff. As you approach you see the object of their interest.
Liselotte sees you approaching and calls,
“Fucking hell, Lygan! Are you going to war with the whole world?”
“A fine weapon” smiles Drathamar. “Should we be required at a siege it shall come in most handy,”
"This gun, my friends, is a symbol of the Basilisks' inexorable will. Fresh from the munitions factory in Chalk district, and anointed with holy oil by the priests of the Cathedral itself, it shall vomit forth the wrath of HE upon our foes!"
“So long as it doesn’t explode…” says Fergus stroking his beard, clearly somewhat sceptical.
“What say you, Lygan, are you ready for the road ahead?”
"I dare say you'll be glad of its company the next time you meet a wyvern, Fergus! Tell me...how many days do you think this journey shall take?"
“None of us know the ground ourselves, nor do we know exactly where the church lies. Amalia the provisioner has said that we must travel due east for half a day. We are seeking for a bear spear sticking out of the crust, it has a strip of red cloth tied beneath the crosspiece. This marks our entrance to the rifts. From there..,”
Fergus spreads his hands,
“Who can say?”
Lygan frowns.
"Faugno! How many days' food do we have?"
Faugno replies without having to check.
“Fifteen days of food and sixteen of water between the four of us, sir.”
"Impressive, Faugno. Impressive."
Lygan sighs.
"One moment, friends. Be ready to leave at a moment's notice. I have some more business to attend to."
Lygan strolls back towards the dovecot stable.
The tall man at the stable is now brushing a horse. He looks up at your approach.
“What now?” He says gruffly
"Just admiring your horse. Tell me of this one."
“Four legs. Eats hay. Shits in the street.”
He continues brushing.
"Mmm. Yes. Quite."
Lygan pulls out the scroll of Enochian Syntax once again, and begins murmuring the words thereon.
"You will give me this horse, free of charge."
Again, sweat beads on his forehead. He hands you the reins, not understanding why he is allowing this to occur.
"Thank you."
Lygan, having returned the scroll to its tube, strokes the horse's face.
"What is this one's name?"
He moves on to brush another horse, his brow deeply furrowed.
“Chestnut.”
"Hmm. How original. Come, Chestnut."
Lygan takes the reins and leads Chestnut back to the group of adventurers.
Fergus calls to you, his face sterner than you’ve seen it.
“No. No. Absolutely not.”
He walks over to you and the horse.
“I don’t know how you convinced Gustav, but no. Give the horse back this moment.”
He stands with his arms crossed, his face like thunder.
"What's wrong, Fergus?"
“Amalia told us that the salt crust beyond town is thin and treacherous. Even a man may break through and be killed near instantly by a brine pool. A horse would be lucky to survive minutes. And have you feed for the beast? And water? And if it sheds a shoe? No. Give it back.”
Lygan laughs, making light of Fergus' frown.
"You mistake me; I'm not bringing the horse to ride, Fergus. I'd say there's a good eleven days of meat on this thing."
He gently pats the beast's front flank.
“And when do you intend to kill and butcher it? And who will carry the meat?”
He radiates disdain.
Lygan stares into Fergus' eyes and narrows his own slightly.
"You know...you and your friends there..."
He nods at the mercenaries.
"You're very pushy, aren't you?"
“Only in matters which concern our safety” retorts Fergus, his face firm.
Lygan rolls his eyes, sighing through his nose. He lifts up his rein-holding hand in front of Fergus' face, and lets go of the reins, letting them drop, exaggerating the movement of his spreading fingers for dramatic effect, but makes no effort to guide the horse back to Gustav's stable. Then he walks past Fergus to join his men.
Fergus nods, takes up the reins and returns the horse to the very confused Gustav.
He returns a moment later, all trace of the outrage he felt towards you seemingly having evaporated.
“Well then friends, shall we be off?”
Lygan raises a gloved hand.
"There's one thing we should clarify."
The gathered crowd await your word.
Lygan, who had his back to the group, turns around and regards each of them coldly.
"Who is in charge of this expedition?"
Liselotte speaks: "We are each our own master on this journey. The accord we reached, which you have entered into, is to watch each other's back as far as we share the same path. There is no leader out here, Inquisitor."
Lygan regards her for a moment, then, with a touch of a smile in the corner of his mouth, nods.
"As you say."
He then nods to his men, turns about and walks alongside Faugno, with Ivanov, Leonid and the Basilisk close behind. Corax remains perched upon his shoulder.
Your party make ready to leave Saltburg, setting out in search of a legend.
Your new companions set a gruelling pace over the crust.
The emptiness of the Salt Plains is harsher by day. It becomes harsher still as Saltburg fades from the horizon. When it is gone from sight, all other colour is drained from the world around you. Only the bleached white salt-crust and bone coloured skies remain. You and your companions are the sole stains of absurd vibrancy in that brilliant, savage monochrome. The colours of your robes, never before anything other drab and dun, seem like the crazed manifestations of some terrible dream. You feel the scoured land reel and the wind recoil at the obscene offense of the colours your party bring to their domain. Those elements only recommit their efforts to your expulsion. Salt-laced wind tears at skin and cloth alike, seeking to reveal the pure white hidden beneath the flesh, seeking to right this wrong, seeking to salt your bones.
And the salt beneath your feet is treacherous. A loss of focus, even for a moment, can see a man sink to his thigh in some hidden, reeking brine pool. The pores of his skin searing and puckering shut before welling with painful blisters. You have passed several such wretches whose fate was this and nothing more, the salt claiming their skeletons, adding its armour to them.
Corax wheels overhead, some wayward mark of punctuation in the eternal parchment of the sky, forestalling fate.
You must place your faith in your companions. How easy it would be to lead a man out here, to this place of death, to die.
It is a half day before you come to the place Amalia described. The broken spear pierces the sky like a thought, the shred of red cloth wrapped near its crosspiece flows in the wind like blood through water.
It is a holy miracle that you found the spear. Though what fate it has saved you for, you cannot say. You pray it could be no worse than the fatal mortifications of flesh and spirit you would have endured wandering in fruitless search through amnesiac wastes of salt and death had you not found it.
Beyond the spear, as told, the fissure in the salt yawns like a hungry shadow, like an unhinged jaw.
Your party enters in silence. Grim pilgrims, hushed with reverence. Above you, sky gives way to salt. Not long into your descent the last weak light from the surface fades and you are encased entirely within the dead womb of the world.
The way slopes down, the surface under feet slick like sheet ice. The light from your lanterns and torches plays about the walls like clouded lightning. The crunch of your footfalls echoes down and down and slowly back, altered by the whims of time and space.
Before long, you come to the forest.
It is a skeletal field of petrified trees, of broken limbs and reaching hands, rimed inch thick with glittering salt. They stretch out to snare what passes. Arms with too many elbows, hands with too many fingers, fingers with too many knuckles. In places, the trees reach from floor to ceiling. In places, they stand far enough apart to allow three men walking abreast to pass unhindered. In places, they gather like covens. The torchlight throws wild and haunted shadows near and far. You know they are aeons dead but some vestige of dread afterlife haunts this arbour. There is no peace in their death. There is no sanctuary in their arms.
The dead forest goes on and on.
It is Drathamar who breaks the awed silence.
“I can’t go further today, friends. I’m spent.”
He sits on a fallen, crystallised trunk. You all simply nod. It is the same for each of you, he was just the first to say it.
Fergus grunts that he will make a search of the surrounding area to ensure nothing lurks beyond the edge of your torchlight.
You have seen nothing living or dead down here since entering many hours ago. You pray that nothing living nor dead has seen you.
Lygan instructs his men to stay close and watchful, then, taking off his robes and using them as a makeshift blanket, he leans against a log and tries to rest.
As you prepare the ground for sleep, you notice, a small way off, a pile of stones. Perhaps it marks a grave. Perched on top is a rose carved out of salt. It is beautiful and extremely delicate.
Staring at it a moment, Lygan nudges Faugno.
"Sir?" says Faugno, looking up from his makeshift litter
Lygan nods at the pile of stones with their rose topper.
"What make you of yonder monument?"
Faugno squints at it.
"I'd say tis a cairn, sire. Marks someone's end. That there rose is a pretty thing though."
"A grave then. Oftentimes, graves may house treasure. Yet, as much as not, they house curses. And, these days, dead who do not rest."
“And yet sir,” he counters politely, “is salt not used in the sealing of evil? I would fear the grave, yes, but perhaps not the rose.”
"Then, perhaps, good Faugno, you'd be so good as to fetch it for me?"
Faugno rises without complaint and fetches the rose over to you. When he places it in your outstretched hand you feel a sense of power, faint, but steady, within you. And a certainty that you should not allow the rose to break.
Lygan tucks the rose into a button-hole in his robes.
"Thank you, Faugno. Rest now, my good man."
Lygan creeps forward toward the cairn. He studies the stones thereof, then removes the Stone Magnets from his pocket, rubs them together, then holds the sphere over the grave, to see if it glows.
The stones remain inert and dull. Corax silent.
Satisfied, Lygan nods and returns to his position, ready for sleep.
Liselotte looks over from where she sits,
“Lygan, will you share the watch tonight?”
"What do you propose?"
“We shall each take an hour. I can wake you when it’s your turn.”
"Very well."
You settle down to sleep, your aching body grateful of the rest. It feels like a moment later that Liselotte is waking you for your turn of the watch.
“Wake Rateater in an hour. And don’t fall asleep.”
Lygan sighs, trying to blink the sleep, and salt, from his eyes. He pushes himself up to sit atop the log, and lays his zweihänder across his lap, scanning the forest for signs of trouble.
The unnatural shadows cast by the flickering torchlight through the crooked trees keeps you too on edge to sleep. Several times you feel you hear distant footsteps, but nothing definite, and Corax does not stir. Your watch passes without incident.
You go to wake Rateater after your shift on watch has ended. He is curled up, almost like a dog, chittering softly. You move to nudge him with the toe of your boot but his eye snaps open before you can. He is up quicker than you might imagine possible and passing you to take up his watch duties. He makes no further sound. You return to your swaddled log, and to welcome sleep.
Morning, or what can be understood to pass for it in this crystalline underworld, for who could say what time it really is, arrives without incident. You pack up your camp, such as it is, and ready to set out once more.
Fergus speaks before you do:
“We don’t know what’s beyond this. We barely knew of the forest. No doubt there’s much we haven’t seen, and let us hope it hasn’t seen us. Stay watchful.”
Lygan sidles up to Fergus.
"This 'Rateater'. What do you know of him?"
Fergus, tightens the straps on his backpack and casts a quick glance over at the reptilian man, or the humanoid reptile.
“Not a lot. Not the most talkative of creatures. I believe he’s from Galgenbeck. From the sewers I’d bet, but he hasn’t confirmed that himself.”
“Liar” croaks Corax at Fergus.
Fergus glowers at the bird.
“He’s a charmer int he?”
“Liar.” Protests Corax.
Fergus chuckles.
Lygan strokes the raven's feathers.
"Galgenbeck's sewers are vast. A whole city beneath the city. Who knows what manner of creatures are spawned down there in the dark?"
Lygan steals a glance at the reptilian.
"Do you trust them, Fergus? Any of them?"
Fergus glances at your companions.
"I'll trust anyone who holds a sword by my side, and none who'll hold one behind my back."
He looks at his hands, the skin scarred and stained with violence and age. Tightened by salt.
"I've lost too many friends to count, Lygan. The only person you can ever rely upon is yourself. That's a lesson you must take to heart as an Inquisitor."
He starts away down the sloping, packed salt of the forest floor.
"Damn these woods," you hear him say "May we be rid of them soon"
Lygan turns to his hired men and offers them their daily pay.
"On your feet, men. It is time to move on, by Verhu's teeth!"
Your men accept their pay and shoulder their packs. The brawlers check the gun to ensure it is free from corrosion, and then you are under way.
Lygan marches on, following Fergus.
Before long, Fergus gets his wish and the forest thins. The ground begins to level out.
And then, Fergus comes to regret his wish.
The salt beneath your feet ends just ahead. Darkness yawns.
"Shitting hell" breathes Liselotte through her helm
"I don't like the look of that rope ladder" says Fergus, warily.
Drathamar picks up a chunk of salt and throws it over the ledge, counting the seconds before it hits the floor. Too many.
To everyone's great surprise, Rateater scampers head first over the lip of the chasm and down the face of the abyss. There is silence for some time. Just when you start to believe you will never see the odd creature again, it reappears over the lip, panting. Drathamar's chunk of salt in hand.
"Well bugger me!" laughs Fergus "if he can do it, then I suppose we can too! But we'll have to think about how you want your gun delivered down safely..."
Lygan stares into the chasm.
"I have a rope. And a grappling hook."
Fergus grins. "It's a start"
"How deep would you say it is, Rateater?" Lygan asks the reptoid.
Rateater blinks his eyes with several sets of eyelids. He pushes out his tongue in apparent concentration. He holds up four fingers.
"I think that means forty feet" Interprets Drathamar.
Lygan nods.
"Anyone else have rope? We could tie the ends together to extend it, and lower the gun that way."
"I have some", says Fergus, listing a coil from his pack.
"and I" says Liselotte, doing likewise.
Lygan thinks a moment.
"My proposition is that we take two lengths of rope. Mine, and another's. We tie them together with a secure knot. This will give us approximately fifty feet, if we take ten feet to make the knot with. If we tie the gun to one end, and my grappling hook to another, this should give us approximately the length we need to make a line to the lower level, which we can also use to descend."
Lygan looks at the edge of the pit.
"Think you this ledge is sufficiently sturdy to secure a grappling hook to?"
"I think that'll work," speaks Drathamar, "but I suggest we send Rateater down with it to ensure that it doesn't smash itself to pieces on the wall of the chasm"
"Very well. Do you agree, Rateater?"
Rateater, still bearing a look of extreme concentration, nods his scaled head.
"My gratitude."
Lygan looks between Liselotte and Fergus.
"Which of you will volunteer their rope for this enterprise?"
Liselotte hands her rope to you. "If the gun breaks, I'll break your nose for wasting this."
Lygan gives her a wry smile, then takes the rope. He turns and calls to his crew.
"Men! To me. Faugno: bring me the rope and the grappling hook. Tie the hook to one end. To the other, tie this rope."
He hands Faugno the rope.
"Ivanov, Leonid: secure the Basilisk to the other end of that rope."
The brawlers scurry to secure the Basilisk, Ivanov directing Leonid. The knots they tie are strong-looking. You hope they will hold.
You arrange yourselves in place along the slack rope behind the gun. Rateater poised at the ledge ready to guide it down.
"Here goes nothing..." breaths Drathamar as you all take the strain and inch the holy firearm over the edge and into the abyss.
"Steady, men!"
Lygan shouts, as the gun goes over the edge into the black pit.
Each of you digs your feet into the salt. The ropes creak ominously. Your muscles burn as you release an inch of slack at a time. It takes forever, but eventually there is a hiss from chasm and the rope goes slack. More time passes and Rateater appears again, his face straining and eyes bulging as he concentrates on giving you a thumbs up signal to show that the gun has made it down safely.
And now, you must all descend.
"I wish my shoulders hadn't been half torn out before having to climb down there" complains Liselotte. "Who shall go first?"
"HE be praised! Our expedition will be all the more profitable with the aid of our holy Basilisk! Faugno will descend first. Faugno?"
Lygan motions toward the rope.
Faugno seems unfazed.
"Very good sir. Down in jiffy."
He takes up the rope in his hands and braces his feet against the ledge. With a grunt, he begins the descent.
The rope twitches and jerks. Faugno's grunts begin to fade. Eventually he calls from the bottom,
"I'm down!"
"Two silver a day, I pay that man. Worth every penny" Lygan says to the group.
"Ivanov!"
Ivanov nods grimly.
"If some glorified porter can do it, so can I."
He grabs the rope and makes his way down the cragged wall of salt.
Before long you hear him call: "Piece of piss! Who's next?"
Beads of sweat begin to appear on Lygan's forehead. He wipes them off with his robe sleeve.
"Leonid!"
Leonid is already by the rope. He takes it up grimly and prepares to descend.
"Should I fall sir, don't let Ivanov have my silver."
Lygan pats him on the shoulder.
"Fear not, Leonid. I'll take it myself. Be careful, man. When you get to the bottom, keep your eyes open. Protect the Basilisk with your life. HE be with you."
A string of foul language echoes up from the pit, but before long Leonid calls up to confirm he has made it down safely.
"Worth every penny."
Lygan looks at the others.
"I'll go next, shall I?"
"Your dogs are trained well, but can you match them?" smirks Liselotte
Lygan scoffs.
"Can I match them? I am a Two-Headed Basilisk, Lion's Maiden, Chosen of HE!"
Lygan inhales deeply and lowers himself over the edge, clutching tightly to the rope. He looks down into the deep.
"I say down there...might you...might you try to catch me, should I slip?"
This he tries to say in such a way that they won't hear him up above. Then, speaking to himself:
"Lusi, Head of Denial, who looketh up and down. Watch over me. All will be well. All will be well."
Lygan begins the descent.
It is a close thing indeed.
The rope cuts into your hands and the salt finds its way into the raw flesh. The burning almost causes you to lose your grip, but your hands are guided by your faith, and you are delivered, tired, wheezing, shaking, to the ground at the bottom of the wall of salt.
Once reaching the bottom, Lygan clutches his Basilicus medallion tightly. He prays in gratitude, quietly, kisses the medallion, then straightens up, adjusts his robes, and addresses his men.
"Well, here we are. All alive! HE be praised! Now, let us await the others."
Lygan looks up toward the pit's mouth, watching for the silhouettes of the mercenaries.
"Watch below!" calls Drathamar as he begins the descent. You notice that Rateater descends alongside him, aiding him.
Lygan stands back, making room.
The pair make it to the bottom without issue. You see the silhouette of Liselotte above preparing to descend.
Her descent is ungainly. Her armour and greatsword clearly hinder her progress, however, hand over hand, she makes it down to the bottom and dusts herself off.
"Just you left to fuck it up Fergus, you old fart!" She shouts up.
"Charming!" He calls back down. "Be sure to break my fall with your fat arse if I slip!"
Fergus descends...
He gets about halfway down when the outcrop he rests a foot upon crumbles beneath him.
"Hell's fucking shit thunder" Fergus calls out as his hands slip from the rope. He falls...
He falls impossibly slowly, his silhouette growing like an ink-stain spreading upon parchment. It's almost as if he's floating, light as a feather. As if this were all some snatch of a dream.
But he gathers speed as he falls. The dream curdles to sickening reality as he hits the ground with all the force of a boulder. There is a sickening crack. A cloud of salt-dust is thrown into the air.
No one can move. All breaths are held. All eyes wide and stinging with salt and tears.
There is a groan. The broken heap before you shifts. Brows furrow.
"Fu-"
He rises to an elbow
"-ck me..." He shakes his head as if to clear it.
Lygan stares in disbelief, jaw hanging open.
Liselotte runs to him, helping him up.
“You missed my arse by a country mile you old fool” she says, emotion in her voice.
“Aye,” he coughs, “you must have lost weight.”
Lygan exhales, eyes fixed on the scene.
"Truly, truly..."
He gesticulates with an animated hand.
"...a miracle has occurred today. It is a sign from the Basilisks! HE favours us! Blessed be HE!"
Fergus nods grimly.
“Blessed indeed, though he could have fixed my dodgy shoulder…” he says, forcibly relocating the joint.
“Don’t imagine I have too many falls like that left in me…”
Lygan turns about to examine their surroundings.
At the foot of the cliff behind you, it would appear that the Rifts proper begin. You turn around and behold a cavern before you that opens out into a huge vista, its extremities lost in darkness and fogs of salt vapour. Hexagonal crystals of salt, tall as watchtowers loom in forests, through which weave rivers of acid, glowing with some corrosive luminescence. The ceiling of the cyclopean chamber rises into darkness, the points of stalactites glitter menacingly above you. The chamber extends into the distances. There seem multiple ways you could explore. It would appear that this will take some exploration to find the true path.
Lygan exhales sharply, then whispers words he said to Fergus only hours before.
"A whole city beneath the city. Who knows what manner of creatures are spawned down there in the dark?"
He stares a moment longer into the vista, then turns to face his men.
"Ivanov, Leonid: untie the Basilisk and make ready to go."
He turns to the others.
"Rateater...you smell the air with your tongue, do you not? And I understand you come from...deep places. What is your instinct as to how we proceed?"
Rateater stands high on his haunches and tastes the air with his tongue. He then drops to the floor on all fours and scuttles off into the primordial chamber, weaving his way through the broken ground. Corax sets off and soars above him. They seem to work in synergy, issuing odd calls to each other. You follow.
You can tell Rateater would move through this space at twice the speed if he were not pausing to stay with the group.
It is perhaps this dividing of his attention which causes him to stray onto a particularly thin salt crust which gives way beneath him. He scrambles to regain his purchase on more solid ground, his eyes bugging.
He manages to secure his grip, however, a pouch on his belt is split open by a razor sharp sliver of salt and from it spills his hidden stash of poisoned darts. Had he human features he would no doubt blush at this blunder.
He is much more cautious with his footing from now on.
Lygan's eyes narrow at the sight of the hidden darts as they tumble into the salt rift.
“Foolish creature,” chides Drathamar.
You pass through rough, craggy terrain reminiscent of earthy vistas leagues above and whole world away, which languish beneath clouds and sun you feel you have already begun to forget, though it be only two days since you slipped from their sight.
How you long to walk upon fallen leaves. The sound of salt shifting and cracking beneath your feet is just close enough to remind you how far away from that world you are. Even freezing rain and bitter wind would be preferable to this acrid, stinging air, still as a tomb.
The uniform hazy glow of phosphorescences, indifferent to your body’s cyclical needs, grows taxing on the eyes, wearying on the mind. How you long for noons and dusks, long shadows and the still darker shades of midnights on moonless nights. Starlight seems like an absurd and fragile dream down here. Salt in every form glimmers and sparkles but it is a deadly mockery of that gentle light of the heavens.
No one speaks a word of this lest isolation take hold and madness take root. But you each hear its keening cry in your ears, its hammering blows upon the gates of your heart.
Lygan takes the opportunity to walk alongside Drathamar for a time and speaks in a low voice, so that the others may not hear.
"Drathamar, forgive me, for we have hardly spoken. You are quieter, I think, than your companions...thus I confess I was surprised to hear you berate our dear scout, some distance back."
Here Lygan nods ahead to where Rateater scurries forth on his reptilian legs.
"And yet, did I not see the very same 'foolish creature' assist you — and only you — down into the chasm?"
Drathamar smiles a rueful smile.
"Perhaps I was too harsh," He pauses, looking at Rateater.
"I see myself in that creature truth be told. Does that sound odd? I suppose it does. I have a fondness for the kicked and the cursed, having been so myself for most of my life."
He studies a thin crenulation running along the edge of a boulder of salt, smiling a sad, lopsided smile.
"There is more goodness in that which hides from the light and more wickedness in that which purports to shine in it. Take your holy church. Should you rise up through its ranks to glory, what kind of man would that power make you, Lygan?"
Lygan, holding his oil-lamp in one hand, looks askance at Drathamar and takes hold of the Basilicus between his free fingers.
"Only HE knows, and only HE shall be my judge."
Lygan studies the same crenulation, following Drathamar's gaze.
"'More goodness in that which hides from the light'? Is that what your wayward priests taught you, Drathamar?"
"They taught me to feel shame at their wickedness. Nothing more." He says, his gaze holding you, impassive.
"HE judges, indeed. But the actions HE judges are ours. All I have seen in this world, all that has befallen me, has demonstrated that the desire for power is an open door to corruption."
He drops his gaze and moves to resume following the path set by Rateater.
"Words to meditate upon. Should you deem them worthy of your attention."
"What has caught my attention, Drathamar, is that yonder serpent was carrying hidden darts. Poisoned, I suspect. Tell me, were you aware of this?"
Drathamar shrugs.
"I was not, but I am not particularly perturbed. When one has the visage of a serpent, I'd imagine it behoves one to have certain contingencies available, lest the world turn against you for fear of your face alone."
He smiles politely, his mottled and scarred features reknitting into permutations no more pleasing than before.
"Again, something I know a little about."
Lygan sniffs.
"In Galgenbeck — where I understand he is from — should he show his face in public, he may well be considered sacred, for he bears the likeness of the Basilisks."
"I cannot imagine that would be guaranteed."
Lygan smirks.
"Indeed, you cannot. Imagination is not something I would expect to find cultivated in that gilded nest of corruption they call Schleswig."
Lygan strides ahead, leaving Drathamar.
The salt crunches. The salt stings. How you wish the light would fade. You lit your lantern just to add some contrast to the broken, hellish caldera through which you travel.
And all you do is travel.
The scenery around you changes, hour on hour, but rather than the features of the landscape flowing one into the other as with a journey over land, all of the elements around you, the acid rivers, the powdery flats, the towering pillars simply shuffle and reapply themselves in jumbled configurations around you.
How you have come to loathe salt.
Hours pile upon each other and collapse. Surely nothing could live down here. Nothing from the surface. The transformation of the forgotten king into the Cantigaster must have been extreme in its totality. What creature awaits you in the stinging dark of this special hell?
Each of you trudge along in your own thoughts. Barely a word passes between the group, even when all turn to help negotiate the Basilisk over some troublesome rut or precarious promontory.
It is this inward reflection, introspective, hypnotic and sullen, which almost leads the party to its doom.
You all seem to come to the realisation at once.
You have strayed out to the midpoint of the crusted surface of some hideous lake, its surfaces boiling and retching just inches beneath you.
You have no choice to press on for the far bank, but you must take the highest of care.
Lygan continues striding over the lake, periodically looking back to check on the progress of his Basilisk crew.
To your companions’ astonishment, you stride on with divinely emboldened confidence. Heedless of the danger. Perhaps it is this cocksureness which sees you safely to the far bank
You turn and watch the others work their way slowly over the crust, freezing in terror at the slightest cracking sound.
They approach with agonising slowness. One by one they achieve the comparative safety of the lake shore.
Until one of them doesn’t.
Drathamar, light of foot and graceful of movement though he is, unknowingly places his weight on an invisible stress fracture in the salt crust.
There is a loud crack and Drathamar is plunged into the acidic lake. A small mercy that it only comes up to his thigh, but he is not in a place to be grateful for this.
He thrashes and screams, the hissing, yellow liquid eating through his leather armour and his flesh, which sloughs off him in sheets, red and angry like boiled meat.
Rateater is at his side in a flash, hauling him out by his head, careful to not let any of the reeking liquid touch his scaly flesh.
Rateater drags Drathamar to the lake shore, miraculously avoiding further injury. Another small miracle eclipsed by the larger tragedy.
Drathamar lies in a heap on the salted ground. His skin and armour in ruins, smoking and hissing. He coughs and groans in pain.
Eyes are wide, tongues are quiet. It’s not hard to see the implications of an injury such as this in such a hostile place. Drathamar will be greatly weakened. His chances of survival greatly diminished. Though not entirely extinguished.
Lygan stands next to Faugno, surveying the scene.
"As if he weren't disfigured enough" he says, quietly.
"Offer him your stick, Faugno. He may need it to walk with. If there's trouble ahead, do not be tempted to fight; you and I both know you are no warrior. Stay behind me or one of the others."
The Inquisitor then raises an authoritative gloved hand and calls out toward the whole party.
"My friends! I suggest we rest here; not to sleep, but to catch our breath. What little there is to catch in this treacherous realm. My porter here carries a medicine chest, and he is adept with a needle and thread. Let us pause and see to Drathamar's wounds ere we continue. What say you all?"
“Very good sir,” says Faugno, hurrying to leave his stick by Drathamar’s side.
Drathamar looks up at you through pain hazed eyes.
He sighs a deep shuddering sigh, his lungs wheezing painfully.
“I accept…” he breathes. “Oh blast it all…” he screws up his face in pain.
Graciously, you allow Faungo to administer aid to Drathamar. He cuts away leather that has fused with skin and applies salve to the angry wounds. He stitches open gashes where he can, then binds the wounds with clean bandages and when he is finished, you allow him to drink a little water. Drathamar’s breathing is ragged but he neither flinches nor calls out through the ordeal. The damage, though extensive, is mostly superficial. And though it will pain him greatly, the salt in the atmosphere will work in his favour, keeping the wounds clean and staving off infection.
You are supervising Faugno packing up the medicinal supplies when you hear Rateater issue a shrieking HISS, his dorsal quills splayed and quivering, his whole aspect vibrating with violent alertness. You follow his gaze.
Lumbering over a rise in the direction you had been heading, a beast of shimmering wonder approaches.
Its form is like that of the bear of the surface world, only, the mass of this creature’s body is coloured black as the void, but the edge of it, where it meets open air, burns white like fire drained of all colour but with its brightness preserved. Through the white fire you see, pressed above the ridge of some olfactory organ from which hangs a bunch of obscene sacks grotesquely reminiscent of grapes, a single eye burns with crystalline malevolence. Brutal teeth bracket the strange fruit at top and bottom of what must be its jaw. Foul ichor oozes forth from the aperture.
The beast confounds your eyes to look upon it.
It roars, a sound that rends the very air with rage, and charges. Its lumbering lope gathering speed as it barrels down the incline towards you. It is maybe thirty yards away. It will be upon you soon.
The Inquisitor's eyes widen in alarm. Quick as lightning, he draws his zweihänder from its sheath, his bellowing voice following soon thereafter, half-screaming commands of battle.
"TO ARMS, MEN! READY BASILISK! FIRE AT MY COMMAND!"
He snaps his head to Fergus and Liselotte.
"FERGUS! LION'S MAIDEN! BOWS!"
Then he whips about to face Drathamar.
"IF THOU ART GRATEFUL FOR MY MEDICINE, SIR, THEN BY VERHU'S TONGUE USE THY CUNNING ARTS TO BLESS OUR GUN!"
“NOW WE’RE TALKING” bellows Fergus, already having crouched and shouldered his crossbow, aiming with grim precision.
Liselotte has nocked an arrow and sights down its shaft.
Rateater draws a dagger and hisses loudly, both arms stretched wide in invitation.
Drathamar nods, pale and sweating. He holds one arm across his chest, and stretches out the opposite hand towards the gun, his eyes closed, his brow furrowed, his lips silently chanting.
Seeing Drathamar doing this, Lygan darts over to Ivanov and Leonid and shoves the rear-most man out of the way, seizing the firing mechanism of the gun in his own hands. Watching the incoming monster, he quickly takes hold of the Basilicus medallion, kisses it and lets it drop to his chest.
"HE GUIDE MINE AIM!"
Lygan squeezes the trigger.
Energy, black and potent flows from Drathamar's outstretched hand to yours, hovering over the firing mechanism. You feel it thrumming through you, your focus heightening to within an inch of breaking point.
With a roar of thunder the Basilisk gun fires, tearing a furious wound in the beast's shoulder, rending white/black analogues of flesh and bone with violent indifference. The creature roars with furious agony, its charge slowing for a moment.
The smoke and roar of the gunshot sends Liselotte's arrow wide, but Fergus, seasoned monster hunter that he is, waits to loose until the moment after your shot when the beast has slowed. His aim is true and the quarrel he fires sails across the diminishing space between you and the bear-thing and strikes home in the eye-crystal above its gaping maw.
The creature thrashes and howls, enraged. Its white fire outline flickers for a moment.
And then it resumes its charge. This is no longer about food.
This is about blood.
"GOOD SHOT, FERGUS!" shouts Lygan, before turning to Ivanov and Leonid.
"LAY DOWN THE BASILISK, MEN! DRAW THY BLADES!"
Lygan hands the gun back to Leonid and, picking up his zweihänder, charges at the bear.
Through the haze of gunsmoke the creature lumbers, trailing blood and viscera in its wake. The wounds inflicted upon it would kill any surface creature of the same proportions, but this creature is driven on by a singular fury; it will meet its death with bloody claws and tearing fangs.
You step away from the Basilisk gun as the beast approaches and rush at your foe, swinging your greatsword like a harvester at reaping time. Your aim is true, but the blow is deflected by the beast's momentum.
There is a flurry of movement on the other side of the bear and Liselotte is there, driving her Zweihander forward as if to impale the bear-thing, but she curses as the weird skin of the creature also turns away the force of her attack.
"Fucking COME ON THEN!" Roars Fergus, leaping at the bear as if to cleave it entirely in two with his battleaxe. And he very nearly does. His blade biting deep into the flesh between its neck and already ruined shoulder, hot gore staining the smokey air.
Rateater leaps at the not-bear with his dagger flashing, but the blow glances off its thick and odious hide.
"BACK!" cries Drathamar even as purple sparks dance between his outstretched hands.
You each leap back in time to see two great arcs of energy discharging from Drathamar's palms, striking the beast squarely in the chest and scouring deep wounds with infernal heat.
The beast lets out a confused, lowing moan. The reek of scorched flesh fills the air. With a heavy thump the beast collapses onto its side. As it falls, the most peculiar thing happens. The black void of its core is replaced with a burning white, too bright to look at, and the white fire around its edges become black as shadow on a starless night. Within moments it begins to disintegrate. Foul fluid seeping from its many wounds, its hideous flesh bubbling and rupturing.
The whole process takes maybe a minute, and then, all that remains is a black, scorched puddle on the floor, smouldering white around the edges.
"HE BE PRAISED!" Lygan shouts, triumphantly.
"HE be praised."
He walks back and pats Drathamar on the shoulder.
"Well done, my friend. Well done. Not bad for a Schleswiger after all, eh?"
Lygan turns to Ivanov and Leonid.
"Men, well done to you. Reload that Basilisk and let's get this movable feast underway."
"Right away, sir!" barks Ivanov, he and Leonid setting to the task of cleaning and charging the weapon.
Drathamar leans heavily on his borrow staff, sweat pouring down his ashen face. "I like to put on a good show when I can" he says.
Fergus spits on the vile hissing puddle. "Now that, was a fight" he says, massaging his shoulder and taking a swig from his waterskin.
Lygan sidles up. "You did well, Fergus. How was that for a monster? Just like old times?"
"Not quite like old times... we didn't have a fucking cannon" he laughs. "Would have saved me a scar or two, I'd wager!"
"A fine weapon indeed, Lygan" calls Liselotte. "Shame I didn't get to see more of your combat prowess. I have a feeling it would have been most amusing."
Lygan chuckles at Fergus.
"This is hardly a cannon, Fergus. If we survive this adventure, perhaps I will take you to Galgenbeck some day and show you our munitions factories in Chalk district. Now there is some serious firepower, my friend!"
He turns to Liselotte.
"I am sure there will be opportunity yet to amuse you with my combat prowess, Lion's Maiden. Perhaps you will even get a chance to demonstrate some of your own."
He winks at her as he walks over to find Faugno and ensure his wellbeing.
Your party takes some moments to gather what was scattered in the melee and collect yourselves in the aftermath.
It has been an eventful day.
“Friends,” says Drathamar, pain and tiredness drawing the words out from him slowly,
“I’m afraid I don’t believe I can journey much further today. I need proper rest before undertaking another day’s travel. What say you we move a little way further down the path to avoid inquisitive scavengers that heard our conflict, and then bed down for some hours?”
Fergus nods in agreement,
“Aye lad, I’m approaching spent. Not as spry as I used to be!”
Lygan nods.
"We've had quite a journey today, and not without incident. I do believe my men and I would benefit from some rest; judging by what just transpired, whatever lies ahead will require us to have all our wits about us."
With that the decision made, the group presses on to a small, dense outcropping of salt pillars, pushing deep enough in as to be largely invisible from anywhere beyond the immediate vicinity.
A meal is had and a watch rota is drawn up. Blankets are laid and packs employed as pillows. Those who are not on first watch sleep deep and fast, the day’s exertion having drawn deep on all available reserves, physical and mental.
What bliss it is to succumb to oblivion, even for a few hours. To be freed from this living tomb of salt and death. How you wish you could wake anywhere but here.
Liselotte nudges you awake with her boot.
“Your turn at the watch, grand Inquisitor.” She says, tiredness fringing her eyes and her words.
Corax draws his head from under his wing to snap at her petulantly, then returns to his slumber.
The watch is uneventful. Distant crashes reverberate through further chambers, but nothing nearby provokes your concern. The salt stings your eyes, preventing them from becoming heavy, but you tire all the same.
Fergus is snoring softly when you wake him for his turn.
“Ah bollocks, feels like I only just got to sleep.” He grumbles, rubbing his face and rising to take your place.
You return to grateful sleep, once more to dream of a sky you have all but forgotten.
Hours later, the light unchanged, you are woken for the beginning of a new day.
The colour has returned to Drathamar’s face, and Fergus too seems to have recovered some of the vigour he lost in the fall of yesterday.
Was it yesterday? The concept of time is stretched to its absolute limits down here in this infernal unchanging dusk of weird chemical phosphorescences. Hours shrivel and shrink like salted meat, threatening to crack and shatter into the very atoms of time, while moments hang and drag for what seem like days, leaving you unmoored and adrift, the very units of time interchanging meaninglessly in absurd ballets of fragmented temporality.
If a confluence of time and space could be heresy then no where or when could be worse of an affront than here and now.
How you wish to see it all burn.
And so you ready yourself for another day.
Lygan, his mood somewhat flattened by the oppressive atmosphere of the rifts, grudgingly picks himself up, dusts off the salt that covers his robes, gives his men a curt nod, then silently trudges along with the others. He pauses a moment, thinking, then reaches into his purse and wearily hands out silver coins to his three followers.
"Your payment."
Your men are seemingly caught off guard by the silver. For a moment Leonid in particular seems like he doesn’t even recognise the tarnished silver coins you pass to him. It appears there is a kind of salt amnesia seizing the group. Only one foot in front of another. That is all there is to think about. One foot in front of the other.
Liselotte breaks the silence of the morning’s march,
“You know, I don’t think I could find my way back to those cliffs Fergus fell from even if my life depended on it. Damn this wretched place.” She kicks a shower of salt powder up with her boot.
Lygan walks alongside her, like he did with Drathamar the day before. Something about a human voice, raised by even the slightest sign of emotion, generates a spark of life in him that rouses him from his sombre mood.
"Does your mind turn toward retreat already, Lion's Maiden?"
“As I told you, inquisitor, I seek a worthy death. Bleeding out in Nechrubel’s fucking salt cellar isn’t exactly what I had I mind. But neither was a sword measuring contest with a man of the cloth… so I guess life is full of surprises.” She smiles and looks ahead.
“What worth has a life if you can’t right die right? About as much worth as a death if you haven’t lived right I suppose…”
She sighs.
“Oh fuck it, I don’t know, Lygan. The world broke me so I just want to break the world. There’s no way to run from something like that, can you understand? If I turn around I’m still facing it. Life is a trap and death is the release. There is nothing more.”
Lygan looks askance at her a moment, considering her words.
"A worthy death. I wonder, Liselotte...how will you know, when death comes, whether or not it truly was? Worthy, that is. Worthy of what? Worthy of praise by your companions? Worthy of half-whispered fables, told to foolish travellers over the ale-filled tankards of the Jug & Crown? What makes any death worthy? Who will measure its worth? Who will judge whether or not it was worthy enough? What if it isn't?"
Lygan bends down and scoops up a handful of salt in his glove, which he lets slowly slip out of the gaps between his fingers as he walks.
"Death is always a tragedy, madam...with which you are well-aquainted, I know, and for that you have my sympathy. But it is not death you should seek...for seeking death is dangerously close to the cowardly sin of suicide, and I know you are no coward. What gives worth to our lives, is not their end, but to fulfil their purpose: to seek the greater glory of the Basilisks, namely, to witness the coming manifestation of their Prophecies, as transcribed in the Nameless Scriptures. This is what HE and his Mother truly want from us, Lisolette. This is why we exist: to witness their worthiness. We were made for that purpose. To be mirrors to their perfection. When this we finally comprehend in its entirety, then we shall see the Shimmering Fields, and all will be well."
The Inquisitor watches as the last of the salt grains fall from between his gloved fingers.
"You say there is nothing more. And yet...I am minded to think there is something. Something that drives you on. Something you are not saying. If you really sought death alone, worthy or not, there are all manner of ways in which one might find it...but if whatever you imagined a worthy death would entail was not down here in this salted hell, as you say, then why come here, of all places, to find it? My guess is that another, singular, purpose brings you all this way. Tell me: am I wrong?"
“Don’t presume to know me or my thoughts, Lygan. We are not guided by unseen hands. We are pebbles in an avalanche. Nothing more.
“But…I confess, in a certain way, I admire your faith. It must be comfortable, to put yourself in the hands of something greater, to believe there is something more than suffering followed by oblivion.
“The only faith I can hold is in the certainty of death. No doctrine can be more demonstrable. Death has been my true parent and sole companion these long years, the only constant I have found. I do not wish to disappoint it by dying on a privy, shitting myself inside out from spoiled meat, or at the hands of some drunken, lecherous mob, powerless and cringing. A worthy death is one of my choosing. Where I meet my teacher, my companion and see him smile and nod in approval. My blade broken by the sheer number of enemies felled, the very air stained red by their overflowing blood.
“If you believe there is more to my existence, something I cannot say aloud but hold deep within the recesses of my heart, I will not attempt to dissuade you, but I will not allow you to indulge the notion either.
“Allow me to be who I am, Lygan, do not attempt to bend me into who you want me to be.
“Or I’ll break your fucking jaw.”
She says this last line with a sardonic smile.
Corax, silent on your shoulder through Liselotte’s speech, fixes her with a steely gaze,
“Liar.” He caws
She laughs a bitter laugh.
“Gods, not your bird as well. A fine inquisitor you’ll make of him, Lygan. Should we ever emerge from this crust of hell.”
"This bird is wiser than us all, for are not all men...and women...liars?"
Lygan looks her in the eye and holds his gaze for the briefest of moments.
"Perhaps, some day, he shall preside over your trial before the Inquisition, for self-confessed faithlessness. Though I would expect little else from a denizen of Wästland."
Lygan smirks.
"If it is the sheer number of enemies slain that you deem to be the value of your death, Lion's Maiden, then I hope you can aim your arrows straighter next time."
He snorts and walks away from Liselotte.
“Prick” she calls after you, though not unkindly.
The hours roll on.
While each individual keeps their wits tuned to the world about them enough so as to at least partially mitigate the threat of ambush, that only takes so much observational power. And there are only so many topics one can discuss with a travelling companion before lapsing into silence becomes preferable.
And so silence falls. Heavy as lead.
Hour upon hour you drift along. The going easy, the going hard. It makes no difference. The party thins out into a caravan, treading through monotonous wastes, vast as the shores of sleep; a thread of salt-blighted pilgrims, dragging themselves onward towards the ever receding horizon.
Only there isn’t quite a horizon down here. Optical illusions are too numerous to catalogue in this place, and the landscape itself is uniquely stubborn in its unconformity. You see nothing, quite literally nothing ahead of you for hours, then without warning the landscape becomes unrecognisable, shuffling raw geologic and geographic components as if they were freshly calved from the primordial elements of some newly formed world, one forged of salt and hate. One that could never exist again, so defiant are its elements.
And so it is that the caravan arrives, one by one, at the pillared maw of a cave mouth, embedded within a cliff wall of gargantuan proportion. Stalagmites and stalactites form the mighty and shattered teeth of the hungry opening.
You stare in silence. Calcified bones litter salted ground.
This is a place of old death.
Lygan draws his sword, narrowing his eyes.
"Can this be the way?" he asks, to no-one in particular.
Studying the bones for a moment, he turns to Rateater.
"The buried church we seek...does it lie beyond this cavernous portal? What does your tongue tell you?"
Rateater’s eyes dart left and right, his tongue tasting the air emanating from the cave mouth.
With strained focus he jerks his head towards the void several times. You take this as affirmation.
"Well then."
The inquisitor shoulders his long blade and hands his lantern to Faugno, before turning to speak to Leonid and Ivanov.
"Bring forth the Basilisk, men. We enter now the maw of death, yet we shall not be swallowed with ease. If die we must, then we shall make death choke!"
Drathamar nods grimly.
"I think on balance I would rather die in there than out here, though I wish an alternative path would present itself."
As a group, you enter the cave mouth, cautious and alert.
The stench of oily smoke hangs heavy in the air. The calcified dead are here in the throat of the cave in greater numbers than outside. Brimstone tussling with salt accretion for dominance on their bones. The cave is wide and worms down further into the darkness.
"Oh good," says Liselotte. "I was becoming concerned we weren't deep enough underground already."
Lygan motions for Drathamar to come near.
Drathamar walks over to you. As he does the flame in your lantern, usually so stoic and steady, burns low then snuffs out completely.
"Sorry, I've been having that effect on light sources since we encountered that bear thing. I think I was a bit too eager with my scroll-work perhaps." He smiles apologetically in the now-dimmed half-light.
"On that subject, I know you are not mine to command, Drathamar, but I believe it was largely your scroll-work which helped us defeat that creature. My Basilisk shot would have missed otherwise, I am convinced. Can I count on you, friend, when the time comes, to lend me your aid again?"
He bows modestly.
"My lord inquisitor, would that I could have your artillery by my side against every foe I face. You can count on me."
You proceed down the bone-littered passage, so choked with the long dead that it seems more ossuary than cave. The bones crumble to dust beneath your feet.
At length, the passage of bone opens out into an enormous and stinking cavern. The reek of tar is omnipresent. Small puddles of the stuff burn smokily, rendering the space in fitful gloom.
You are on a ledge which runs forward and to the left some forty feet. To your right the stalactites close in from the ceiling, forming only a small crawl space. You observe an armoured foot protruding from the jaws of that constricting space. Ahead over the edge and down, a drop of some sixty feet, you see a rocky promontory surrounded by a lake of viscous, evil smelling tar. Embedded in the end of the jut of rock, standing upright and tall, you see a two-handed sword. It glisters in the gloom. Even from this distance the weapon is clearly of impressive design, outclassing your inquisitorial blade by some margin.
Corax caws loudly and flies from your shoulder down, gliding on foul thermals of hot air, to come to settle on the crosspiece of the sword.
You hear his caws echoing loud and insistent.
"Caw!" He cries, "Sacrifice!"
"Awk!" He screeches, "Crown""
"Rehk!" He crows, "Prison!"
These words he repeats over and over.
"So the bird does have more to say. Sacrifice. Crown. Prison. But what does it mean?" Lygan wonders aloud, as he studies the tar-flooded cavern.
"One thing is certain: this is no church."
"You're sharp, Lygan, I'll give you that." Says Liselotte, peering over the edge of the precipice. "Damn shame we left those ropes back where Fergus fell."
Lygan turns to her.
"Fergus still has a rope of his own."
"That I do, lad" He opens his pack, now lighter, as are all, with travel. "Here's the very thing." He holds the coiled rope up.
"And what do you propose we do with it, Lion's Maiden? I see no crown down yonder, but a sword."
It is Drathamar who speaks.
"I believe that sword is part of all of this, Lygan. Saw you not the skeletons choking the cave we passed through? Did you not think it odd? And perhaps you noticed there were horse bones in amongst them? This appears to be the resting place of an army...and I can't help but wonder who's sword that is, and if it might, somehow, show us the way."
Liselotte shrugs.
"I must confess, Drathamar, I did not find a large collection of the dead to be 'odd', but a sign of some horror that dwelt within this cave: no doubt the source of their demise. So expectant to find this horror waiting for us was I, that I paid no attention to the bones themselves. I admit I am surprised that horses lie among their number...for I was led to believe that this place was not fit for such beasts."
He shoots a look at Fergus.
"Though...perhaps this army, as you put it, came here long before the shrouding of the salt, if the legend is to be believed? In which case, these bones are truly ancient...and who leads an army but a king? Might this sword be that of the very king who defiled this false god's shrine? If so...why is it here?"
Lygan turns to where the armoured foot lies protruding from a narrow crawlspace and nods.
"Perhaps we shall find a clue there?"
"Perhaps indeed," nods Drathamar, "and I believe you're right about the sword. Surely it must be that of the forgotten king. But as you say, why, why does it rest here, and not with him?"
"Let us learn what we can."
The inquisitor beckons Faugno over.
"My good fellow. Just as you fetched me this fine rose two days ago, will you be so good as to inspect yon armoured foot that we see in that crevice? Leave your pack with me: the opening appears narrow."
"Very good, sir" says Faugno with neither hesitation nor resentment. He gets onto his hands and knees to better observe the crawlspace and body within.
"Looks like the poor bastard tried to crawl through but got stuck because of his armour, sir. Seems to have corroded now though, shouldn't be too hard to..." Faugno grips the boot and with a screeching wrench of rusted metal on stone pulls the body and its broken armour free.
What skin remains on the body is brittle as dry parchment. The armour has cracked and sheared in many places; wicked edges rust away to flakes before your eyes.
The right arm of the body is stretched out ahead of it and in its skeletal grip you see a small vial wrapped in bandages. The vial glows with cool white light between the age-blackened scraps of cloth.
"What do we have here, Faugno?"
Faugno pries the vial from the corpse’s petrified fingers.
“Why… tis a light of a kind”
Drathamar approaches Faugno.
“Might I see that, Faugno?”
Faugno passes the vial over to him. The light does not dim in his hands.
“Fascinating.” Says Drathamar.
"What make you of this object, Drathamar? How does a lantern still shine, undisturbed here for aeons untold?"
Drathamar’s crooked, twisted features are illumined oddly by the glowing vial.
“And how is it not dimmed by my newfound aura of darkness? I’d wager it is more than a lantern, Lygan. Those bandages seem to protect it from damage. Perhaps it could be used as a weapon of some description…”
Lygan's eyes light up in the glow of the new-found lantern.
"A weapon?"
The inquisitor reaches out a hand to take it.
Drathamar hesitates.
“Might I be so bold, Lygan? This will light my way, where other flames will not. Should you need of it I shall gladly return it to you, but… allow me this boon?”
Lygan considers for a moment.
"Very well, Drathamar. It is only fair, in exchange for your...assistance."
He gives a knowing smile, before turning to Faugno.
"Was there a way through that crevice, Faugno? Why did that fool attempt to crawl in there?"
Drathamar nods graciously.
“Indeed so. Fine and just you are, Lygan.”
Faugno peers into the unblocked crawlspace, the light from his flickering torch casting dancing shadows through the great fangs of rock.
“I’d say so, sire. I’ll wager that’s what this fellow was making for, an easier way down to that there sword.”
"Interesting. Let us keep that in mind, yet investigate all other possibilities first. This is how an inquisitor must operate, my friends: for finding the right path through this treacherous cavern is not dissimilar to finding the truth buried among a web of lies when one is cross-examining those charged with heresy. Let us explore this way, and see what may be found..."
Lygan points the way in the opposite direction.
You move along the ledge forward and to the left. Small tar fires smoulder and smoke, but otherwise all is silent. You come presently to an opening in the left hand wall. Peering through you see it opens directly onto a pit shaft, deep enough so you cannot see the bottom.
"Fergus, what say you we tie my lantern to the end of your rope, and lower it down, that we may see into the deep herein? Perhaps secrets essential to our cause may be revealed."
“A sound idea, lad” says Fergus.
You attach the rope to the lantern and lower it over the edge. The weak yellow light of the lamp bounces off the sheer rock walls revealing nothing of immediate interest save rock and air. When the light is close enough to illuminate the bottom of the shaft, nearly the full length of the rope away, a single broken corpse is revealed, limbs twisted by the fall and features desiccated by salt and time.
“It would appear this cavern does not favour solo travellers” scoffs Liselotte.
Lygan turns and glances at the reptile before speaking to Fergus and Liselotte.
"Rateater can scale shear walls with ease, can he not? Might he attempt to see if this one has anything of value down there?"
Rateater’s eyes bug in their sockets, and quick as a flash he is down the hole. He climbs head first down the shaft in total silence. He reaches the body with ease and searches it. You cannot tell if he finds anything, too great the distance, too dim the light. He ascends again with startling speed and is by your side, the whole trip having taken less than two minutes. He tastes the air rapidly as if he were panting, and uses his long, narrow tongue to moisten his bulbous eyeballs. A rather ghastly sight.
"Well, friend? Did you find anything of interest down there?"
He stares at you, unmoving.
Lygan glances awkwardly at the others, then back at the snake, raising his eyebrows.
Rateater’s tongue flicks to his eyeballs once more. His eyes dart left and right.
“If he has something I’d say he doesn’t want to give it up!” Chuckles Fergus.
"Perhaps he would like something in return. Is that right, Rateater?"
Rateater hisses suddenly and drops to all fours.
“I’m not sure I’d pursue this further, Lygan…” cautions Drathamar.
Lygan narrows his eyes and shakes his head.
"Strange creature."
He turns to Faugno.
"Faugno, retrieve the lantern from Fergus' rope. Let's continue our search of this cavern."
The inquisitor strides on past the hole in the wall to keep exploring the ledge in this direction.
Faugno hauls the lantern up, it clatters off rock, echoing as it comes.
The ledge extends for another twelve feet or so and ends in a craggy wall face. Peering over the edge here is much the same situation as it was where you entered. Sheer rock descends to uneven ledges some forty feet below, perched out over stinking black and bubbling tar.
"Hmm."
Lygan stares into the bubbling tar and considers the options.
"Comrades...I shall attempt to descend to the sword, via the narrow crevice wherein we found the remains of that armoured fellow with the glowing vial. Faugno, you shall accompany me. Perhaps those of you with ranged weaponry might remain on this ledge and provide cover, in case I am ambushed on the way down. That goes for you too, Leonid and Ivanov, though I must stress this: nobody fire unless I command it! There may be foul beasts awaiting in ambush among these rocks, but who can say? Drathamar, if I require your aid I shall call upon you. Come Faugno."
Lygan begins walking to the crevice.
There is a murmur of consensus among your companions and those with ranged weapons position themselves along the ledge opposite the sword below.
Fergus calls after you.
“What if Faugno and I were to switch places? I’d feel more comfortable if you had my axe at your side and he held my crossbow. What say you, Lygan?”
"No, Fergus. Faugno and I shall go alone. You are a crack shot with that crossbow and I'd sooner have you guarding me from afar with it, than by my side."
"So be it, I'll fire true should the need arise, have no fear of that."
Lygan nods and, heading back to the crevice, crouches down to clamber through the gap.
The rock takes you into its maw, pressing tight all around, but not hindering your progress. You wriggle past where the armoured copse had lain, and on to an opening on your left, looking out over a shelf of rock about halfway between the lower ledges you seek and your current position. As you consider your options you hear almighty oaths and cursing behind you:
"Oh hell's arse, confounding bloody nuisance... begging your pardon, sir, but I believe I'm stuck" calls Faugno from behind.
Lygan turns around and calls back into the mouth of the crevice.
"Stuck? Come on, Faugno. Push a bit more. If I can make it through, so can you."
You hear groaning and more colourful oaths.
"I'm sorry, sir, but I really am stuck..."
You hear his breath quicken.
"Oh gods, oh heavens, oh please don't let me be stuck, no, no, no!"
"Now, now, stay calm, Faugno. Stay calm. Do not move. I shall call the others."
Lygan crawls forward toward the shelf of rock.
You hear Faugno attempt to calm his panicked breathing.
“What’s going on?” Calls Liselotte, “old man get his arse stuck?”
Lygan attempts to lower himself down onto the shelf of rock below.
Using stalagmites for handholds you lower yourself, feet first, towards the rocky ledge. When you are at full stretch your feet are still not touching the rock beneath, so you allow yourself to drop, praying that you land with grace. Thankfully, you do. With little more than a jolt and a steadying of hands against the wall you descended, you land safely on the ledge and dust yourself off.
Standing on the shelf, Lygan attempts to wave at the others, shouting across the cavern.
"I say! My friend Faugno here...I think he's got stuck! Would someone be able to help him? Maybe send Rateater in with a rope, tie it to him and the lot of you drag him back out?!"
"Fuck sake!" calls Liselotte across the cavern. You see movement on the ledge, but cannot make out the details from this angle. After a few minutes and more robust and full-throated curses echoing through the dim cavern, you see Faugno emerge, shaken but intact, and wave at you from the ledge where your other companions stand.
"Sorry, sir!" he calls "Do you want me to try again?"
"No, Faugno! It's not worth the risk! You stay there with the others. I'll handle this alone!"
Lygan crawls on his hands and knees to the edge of the shelf, peering downward.
The distance to the surface below is similar to that which you just descended.
Lygan tightens his lips, muttering quietly to himself.
"Curse this wretched quest! Verhu, Head of Truth, did you foresee this? Do you see me now, scrambling down a rock face, to fetch a bloody sword? Is this the life you called me to when I saw your glory betwixt the clouds? Mark me, Gorgh, Head of Bitterness...they best make me Grand Inquisitor after this!"
The inquisitor sighs and gets to his feet.
"RATEATER!" he bellows to the watching crowd on the ridge.
Rateater presents himself at the ledge.
"WILL YOU COME HITHER, SIR?"
Rateater looks uncertain, then steps back from the ledge, disappearing from sight.
A moment passes.
"It doesn't look like he wants to come!" Calls Drathamar.
The Inquisitor sighs.
"They'll never let me live this down" he says to himself.
"FERGUS! I MAY NEED YOUR HELP AFTER ALL."
"Say the word, Lygan!" He calls, "What would you have me do?"
"I NEED YOU DOWN HERE WITH YOUR ROPE, SIR! I DARE NOT RISK THIS DESCENT WITHOUT."
"With you shortly!" he shouts and approaches the crawlspace.
"AH SHITE!"
There is a good deal of struggling heard from within the crawlspace.
"Not actually sure how you managed this, Lygan!"
"Let me see if I can just..."
There is a loud cursing and tearing sound. Fergus' head appears at the opening.
"It would appear I've ripped me britches..." he says, blushing.
"Praise HE that is all you ripped!"
"True enough. What now?"
"I apologise, Fergus, for turning you away, earlier. I thought my man and I could manage this by ourselves. But it seems that was not the will of Verhu. I was wrong. You were right. What I would like, if you agree, is for you to stay on this ridge, and hold the rope fast, while I descend upon it down over this ledge and to the promontory below, where I will take up the sword. Then I shall ascend by the rope once again and meet you back here, with the prize. If Verhu wills, of course."
"Very well!" Fergus loops the coiled rope over his shoulder and proceeds to lower himself, as you did. However, the stalagmite he trusted his grip to proves to be slick with tar, and his hand slips from it as he lowers himself.
"ARSE!" He yells as he lands in a heap beside you. He has a nasty gash on his forehead, from which blood flows freely, but he is otherwise upright and intact straight after the fall.
"Ah..." he groans, touching his tender head. "Sorry Lygan, I made a right pig's ear of that."
The inquisitor chuckles.
"Let us hope you can hold onto a rope better than you can descend a cliff-face."
He chuckles somewhat sheepishly "I shan't let you down again, lad."
He stands ready with his legs braced and the rope coiled around his hands.
"Ready when you are."
"Before I go down...I'd ask something of you."
Lygan glances back to the ridge, and says, quietly.
"What is Rateater's problem? I know he's not...human...but his behaviour has been...erratic? Do you trust him?"
Fergus' face clouds.
"I know Drathamar says he's ok, and I have complete faith in Drath, but I can't rightly say the same of his companion, no..."
"What's the hold up?" Calls Liselotte.
"Hmm. We best be wary. But..."
Lygan glances back toward the Lion's Maiden.
"...we cannot keep the lady waiting now, can we?"
He smirks and readies to lower himself down on the rope to the level below.
Fergus holds the rope steady and you manage to climb down without misadventure. The sword sits, maybe forty feet away at the bottom of some large stone steps. It is within your grasp.
"I'm down, Fergus! Wait there. I won't be long. I hope..."
The inquisitor scrambles down the stone ledges toward the sword, where he sees Corax sitting atop its hilt.
"Corax! My friend...do you recognise this blade?"
The sword is magnificent. Its blade glitters in the gloom, and you see, for the first time, that writing dances in an unknown tongue across the blade. Unknown, and yet known. The words speak clear in your mind: “Make a vow for thy great cause, or purposeless the edge will crumble to dust.”
The blade is the finest you've seen. The armouries of the Inquisition pale in comparison to the exquisite craftsmanship that created this. It is not a weapon. It is a work of art, a holy icon.
Corax looks at you from his perch on the hilt. He caws the same three words he has repeated since you entered the silent and stinking chamber.
And yet the chamber is no longer silent.
There is a rumbling in the darkness beyond the sword. A churning within the foul lake of tar. The sound of a colossal drain unblocking. Of aeons dead stones grinding and cracking against each other.
A redness, a dim point of illumination grows in the darkness beyond. You see waves form on the turgid surface of the vile lake.
A colossal face looms out of the shadows.
The inquisitor looks upon the colossal face with awe. After a brief pause, he speaks.
"It is indeed beautiful, Great One! Pray, tell me, whom do I have the honour of addressing?"
The creature smiles. Gargantuan scales of rock and salt rearranging across its face with the deep rumbling of continental shift.
“Maramagdus” it intones with a voice as deep as the hollows of the earth in which it dwells.
The heat from the creature’s breath is staggering, As if its mouth opened into one of the deep veins of the world and the lakes of fire therein. And the stench. Hell itself could not prepare you for such an olfactory assault.
Lazily, the creature sweeps its single red eye to Corax.
“Hello little crow. You found your way back here it seems. It has been long years since last we met.”
Corax caws in agreement.
The creature must surely be some kind of dragon, but none as you’ve seen documented in the codices of the Inquisition.
It turns its attention back to you.
“And who are you, that would seek me in my home and call me Great One?”
"I am Lygan of Galgenbeck, Great Maramagdus. A humble servant of the Two-Headed Basilisks. I was sent here in pursuit of an undocumented legend. Perhaps you are its very source? You know this crow?"
“Ooooh” Maramagdus purrs. “The basilisks… Young upstarts they were when last I stalked the skies. I’m glad to hear they’re doing well. Yes… I know this crow. But I am merely a footnote in the legend you seek. Flattered though I am you think I am at the heart of it. In truth this crow played a larger part than I.”
Maramagdus speaks to Corax again:
“Shall we tell him, crow? Of Ibrakhir and the Princess?”
Corax caws with agitation or excitement.
Masking his urge to pronounce blasphemy at the dragon's belittling of the Basilisks with a fair smile, Lygan speaks.
"I would be all the more honoured to hear thy tale, O Maramagdus. We of the Basilisks' church are eager to learn and record all knowledge of the world; we consider ourselves the custodians thereof, yet this story is regrettably absent from our archives. Please, divulge thy ancient lore..."
Maramagdus sighs, a deep guttural sound that fills the chamber.
“I do so love an audience. Very well. I shall begin. Once upon a time, there was a princess from a distant kingdom. She fell in love with a king whose name the world has forgotten. The king had to march with his armies to protect his kingdom from a most wicked evil, but before he did he promised himself to the princess and gave her a blade that, like their love, would never rust. This blade was an identical twin of his own. Only the familiar of his sorcerer, Ibrakhir, returned. The crow you see before you. The princess, upon seeing the crow, knew that the worst had happened. And so she took up her sword, twin of his, and rode hard with her honour guard, along the path her love had taken, swearing to rescue him from his peril. She did not know that she was already too late and that she rode to her doom. This crow led the Promised Princess along the same path the king had taken. But the land had changed. A salted lake had sprung up where once there was a valley. And so, she and her retinue strayed from the path. She entered my domain seeking passage and oooohh… how I savoured her sweet and tender flesh. And ooooohh how I love the gift she gave. The world has forgotten her name, but I remember her, and treasure that she left with me.”
Maramagdus gazes, longing and covetous, at the sword before you.
“She claimed my eye before she died, you know.”
“I do so love a meal with spirit.”
Lygan's eyes glance upon the gleaming blade.
"But what a treasure it is, Maramagdus! How truly blessed you are to have such a gift in your possession, and all yours! Pray, will you indulge me further? What know you of this King, and the evil to which he rode to defeat? I have heard said, in fragmented form, that he desecrated the church of an ancient god, though the god sought their revenge by drowning the earth all about in salt; such are the broken shards of this tale that have surfaced in the world of men. Perhaps you know the truth?"
“Ooohhhh… you flatter me. I know little of the finer details. Something ancient from the deepest fathoms of the endless sea. The end of all things to come. Yawn, yawn. You know how these things go. Why, I think your companions could tell you more of it, if you could get a straight answer out of them. Some of them least ways…”
He says with a smirk, a devious look in his one, baleful eye as he casts his gaze across the ledge your companions wait upon in readiness, transfixed by the hideous visage of the calcified dragon.
Lygan's eyes narrow with keen interest.
"Do you know my companions, Great Maramagdus?"
"Oh no..." He demurs, "Not those faces..."
His head turns away, coyly, then snaps back, his eye glowing fiercely.
"But the smell... Oh yes... The filth practically reek of the sea."
"Grab the sword and fucking run!" Roars Fergus, "He's toying with you!"
Lygan holds up a gloved hand, motioning for Fergus to be silent.
"Please, forgive the rashness of my friend, Maramagdus. He does not see your greatness for what it is, as I do. I am most grateful for your stories. I wonder...will you indulge me further? Would you let me tell you, Great One, a story of mine own?"
Maramagdus fixes you with a look of famished curiosity. From his throat issues a sound known through all the spaces of the world, great and small, and by all things in it. A sound that is issued from one half of the world to the other and never in reverse is it heard. It is the playful glorying of a predatory who has inexorably cornered his prey.
The grinding of stone and crumbling of salt reverberates, Maramagdus wears an enormous, hypnotising grin upon his ancient, craggy face.
"I'm listening..."
"You will excuse, Great One, if I read this one to you, for a humble man such as I lacks the grace and eloquence of Maramagdus."
Lygan unbuckles the leather lid of the tube hanging from his belt, and unrolls the scroll of Enochian Syntax.
"This tale, Great One, has a most bold and audacious title: a request for aid from higher powers. I shall speak it loudly and clearly before I begin. It is called..."
The inquisitor raises his voice loudly as he speaks the 'title' of his 'tale'.
"DRATHAMAR, LEND ME THINE AID!"
Lygan smiles, then, clutching the Basilicus with a free hand, begins reading the words of the scroll to the dragon.
The light in the chamber softens. Reality, yourself included, slows to a crawl, but you do not find yourself filled with fear. Instead, a gentle light blooms from the lettering on the blade before you, from this light blossoms the voice of a woman, clear as a bell.
“Bid him sleep.”
Your breath returns to you. You prepare intone the words of the scroll, knowing what you must say,
"Sleep, Maramagdus. Sleep."
Never have you felt yourself at the nexus of so many conflicting powers. You feel Drathamar’s incantation of grace reaching out to aid you, but you are keenly aware of it stumbling and falling short. You feel the will of the blade before you, that of the ‘Promised Princess’ holding you in its light, guiding the words on your lips. You feel the rose on your breast feeding its last vestiges of power to you. Its energy mingling with yours, aiding you in your invocation of scroll and command. And you feel the full focus of the ancient, salt-ruined dragon Maramagdus, almost a physical force, driving through you with an intensity such that you believe he could see the very sinew that holds you together.
Your words sound clear and resounding from out of the maelstrom of forces which envelop you. They resonate through the chamber and are followed by a silence so absolute, so impenetrable that at first you wonder if your eardrums have ruptured.
And then sound returns to the world. Grinding and cracking as if the cavern itself were tearing itself in two. The features of Maramagdus’ face have grown slack and heavy, this light of his eye, dimmed.
Slowly, at first, then with rising speed and the grinding of stone upon unwilling stone, a possibility becoming an inevitability, his head bows and crashes upon the surface of the lake, sending gouts of reeking tar high up into the air, to stain rocks all about the cavern.
His ancient head sinks beneath the surface of the foul lake with a repulsive sucking sound. Within moments, he is gone entirely.
As the echoes die, silence once again returns to the cavern, creeping and eerie after the cacophony of living stone.
In the wake of the silence that follows, Lygan rolls up the scroll and slots it back into the leather tube on his belt, fastening the buckle.
"Come, Corax."
He extends his hand toward the bird.
Corax caws and flies to your hand, then hops along your arm and up to your shoulder. He looks towards the surface of the lake and caws:
“Liar.”
"Perhaps, my friend. Perhaps. Though what concerns me more..."
Lygan turns to view the ridge where his companions wait.
"...is which of those now lies to me."
The inquisitor places his gloved hand around the hilt of the Princess' sword and attempts to draw it out.
With a melodious, ringing sigh, unnatural to that of steel on stone, the sword glides from the grip of the salted, tarry rock. It is superbly balanced. You have never beheld, let alone held, a finer weapon.
The voice you heard once more sounds in your ear, repeating the words etched upon the blade in that unknown, transcendent language:
“Make a vow for thy great cause, or purposeless the edge will crumble to dust.”
Lygan studies the text on the blade.
"Make a vow for thy great cause...?"
He considers for a moment.
Holding the sword in both hands, he lifts it up to eye level, speaking to the blade.
"Princess...if thou can hear me...I vow to thee, upon this sacred blade, I shall defend the Holy Church of the Two-Headed Basilisks with my life. I shall purge the lands of heresy, that all the world may know and believe that HE speaks the Truth!"
The voice does not speak. The blade does crumble. It would appear your vow is accepted.
"Well, Corax. The Princess' sword is ours now. It is time to rejoin the others. We best be wary, though. Maramagdus said...they reek of the sea."
Lygan climbs up the rocky ledges to where Fergus awaits with the rope.
"Well, Fergus. Are you ready to hoist me up?"
“Ye handled that finely, lad.” Speaks Fergus, bracing once more with the rope.
“Now climb up and let us be rid of this place.”
Awkwardly, with the new sword tucked under an arm, close to his chest, the inquisitor climbs up the rope up to the ledge where Fergus awaits.
"Thank you, Fergus. Do you see, it was I who was toying with him the whole time?"
Lygan shows him the Princess' sword.
"What think you of this blade?"
“Twas a wonder indeed! Maybe I should have tried using brains instead of brawn and perhaps I’d have a few less scars eh?”
He beholds the sword and his eyes widen in astonishment.
“I never saw such a blade in all my years… such craftsmanship!”
"It is beautiful. And yet...what are we doing, Fergus? Is this what we have come for? The dragon...it said he — and this sword, presumably — were but a 'footnote' in the legend we seek. Yet, this is where Rateater — our scout — brought us...yet there is no crown, nor church, nor forgotten king here."
Lygan scans the other ridge, looking for signs of the serpent-man.
"What's his game?"
“A shrewd man you are, Lygan, but think it through. Rateater does not know this territory, so how could he lead us to somewhere he knows not? He merely helps us pass through it while we search for that which we seek. And here, you have found a piece of the legend, real and tangible. Let us take this forth and may it renew our purpose! We are nearer now than many who have sought the legend have ever been!”
Lygan considers Fergus for a moment, studying his scarred face with its wyvern-stinger fragment.
"You're a monster-hunter, Fergus; you've told me as much. Tell me...have you ever hunted anything...at sea?"
Fergus looks perturbed by the question.
“At sea? No lad, not I. I have neither the legs nor the stomach for it. Now, shall we be away, lest the beast wake?”
Lygan nods, briefly casting his eyes down to the lake of tar.
"Yes. Let us join the others. I would not want to be here when he finds his precious sword missing..."
The return journey is no less treacherous, but at least it is unremarkable in terms of calamity. You and Fergus rejoin your other companions on the ledge by the entrance to the cavern with only a few cuts and bruises more to add to your already prodigious collections. If this journey will not end you with sudden and excessive violence then it shall wear your down, piece by piece, scratch upon graze until there is nothing left to injure and you are left wholly disintegrated, becoming anonymous grains in the innumerate dunes of salt which scour this broken field of hell’s frontier.
Lygan regards the group.
"Well well. Look what I have here."
He holds up the sword for all to admire.
“Oh look, Lygan found a bigger sword,” quips Liselotte dryly.
“Now let us leave this dank and rancid hole before your new friend reawakens.”
Lygan looks at Liselotte.
"Did you hear what he said, Lion's Maiden? This sword is a twin of that belonging to the Forgotten King. The Cantigaster of legend. And our friend here..."
Lygan strokes Corax' feathers.
"...belonged to the King's own sorcerer. He is ancient...of days beyond number."
“Wonderful.” She turns and marches for the passage you entered by.
“If any of you possess any scrap of sense, you’ll follow me.”
“She has a point,” concedes Drathamar, following her, “let us regroup once we are out of immediate danger.”
"She has a point, yes...but it's not as sharp as mine" says Lygan, smugly, under his breath as he follows the group out of the cave, admiring his new blade all the while.
You emerge from the cave mouth in the cliff wall into the perpetual crepuscular gloom of the Rifts.
You are all tired and strained from the day’s exertions.
“Perhaps we should make camp?” Suggests Fergus. “I’m shattered.”
Lygan silently assents to the notion and motions to his men to rest up. Taking Faugno aside, he hands him the Inquisitorial zweihänder.
"My friend, this is yours. I cannot carry two large swords, and you have earned this. Use it well. You're the only one I trust, Faugno. Leonid and Ivanov are brave men, of course...skilled fighters, no doubt, but you..."
The inquisitor gently taps his finger on the man's chest.
"...you are the best of us all. Here..."
Lygan, scanning the group to ensure nobody sees, dips his hand into his money-pouch and gives the porter the last of his silver: four coins.
"Two days' pay. It is the last of my silver, Faugno. I do not know how much longer we will be here. Perhaps we will never return to the world above, but, all the same, I will do what I can to protect you. I am sorry you got into trouble today: that was not my intention. I hope you understand."
There is a tear in Faugno's eyes as he speaks, quietly so that the others, specifically Ivanov and Leonid, do not hear.
"I thank thee kindly, sir. No one ever gave me such a gift. I shall give you all I can in return. I shall give my life to ensure your safety, should it come to it. And, here..."
He reaches into his own coin purse, careful not to let the others see, and places ten silver pieces into your hand.
"I serve you now as deputy and retainer. This sword represents a bond between us which cannot be bought with silver and which can only be severed by death, my lord. I pledge my life upon its blade. And I shall help you how I can with Leonid, Ivanov and the others. As the silver runs out and out supplies run short you will be in need of stout allies. I am that man. I am your man, sir.
Lygan pockets the silver and lays a hand on Faugno's shoulder.
"It is an honour to have had you by my side. And if we are to die here, friend, fear not, for it is as I said when we first arrived in Saltburg: the road to salvation lies in mortification of the flesh. All will come to an end, just as Verhu has foretold. Our duty is to embrace this reality with joy and praise HE for the revelation he gave unto us through the prophet Anuk Schleger. We shall not perish in surprise, Faugno, but in the light of knowledge, that all cometh to pass as the Basilisk did predict. But..."
Lygan once again looks around and lowers his voice all the more.
"...do you beware of these others. Fergus, Liselotte, Rateater and Drathamar. I trust them not, Faugno. I did not trust them from the start, but I admit they have proved useful in our quest. Yet, that ancient dragon you beheld in the cave, Maramagdus; he implied they are not telling the whole truth about this venture, and claimed they reek of the sea. I know not what he meant, but be wary all the same."
"I must confess I've always had my doubts about them also, sir. I shall endeavour to watch my back and yours, my lord." Faugno says, surreptitiously glancing at those who joined your party in Saltburg.
"Good man. Now, best get some rest. Who knows what tomorrow will bring? None but Verhu."
With a final pat on the shoulder, Lygan leaves the porter to find his own place to sleep.
Once again, the night, or what passes for it, is divided into watch shifts. You are woken for your by Leonid. "Nothing to report thus far" he yawns, then curls up to sleep. You begin your watch.
Lygan gazes across at the slumbering party, observing them as they rest.
Seeing no-one stirring, and hearing nothing save the snoring of the seven sleepers, he quietly unfastens the tube on his belt and pulls out the scroll of Enochian Syntax.
He looks over at Rateater, and begins muttering the words thereon.
"Rateater...give me what you found on the corpse in the pit" the inquisitor whispers.
The sleeping humanoid serpent rises to his feet as if pulled up by strings. He marionettes over to you, his body jerking and stumbling, lacking its usual serpentine grace. He holds his hand out and drops at your feet a key with a small skull set into the ring, and teeth of what appear to be bone. He then returns to his sleeping position as if nothing had happened.
Lygan rolls up the scroll, slides it back into its tube and picks up the key from the salty carpet. He holds it up to his face, turning it over a few times to examine the details, then quietly slides it into a pocket of his robe. He waits a while longer, then wakes up the next watchman, before settling back to rest.
You are troubled by dreams and visions. Your mind tries to sort through the events of the last few days and the wonders you have seen, great and terrible. This experience has changed you. But it has been a painful change, through ruthless cycles of growth and breakage. You awake feeling physically stronger, better equipped for the task, despite the fact your supplies of food have run out entirely and your water stores are greatly diminished. But you feel your mind sag. You have time and again pushed your powers to their limits and you are now feeling the toll this has taken. You feel somewhat blunted; dulled and slowed. But you will not allow this to hinder your great purpose. You swore as much to you the blade you now carry.
The party is slow to strike camp. Eyes sting from poor sleep on salted ground. Limbs ache from the endless march. Tensions bubble and rise. There are issues within the group and it would appear that some of those are coming to a head.
Rateater appears to have lost something. He claws wildly at the ground where he slept, possessing an animation you have not yet witnessed in him.
Ivanov and Leonid approach you, their looks dark and foreboding. As they do, Faugno surreptitiously positions himself nearby. His new greatsword close at hand.
"Morning, sir." Says Ivanov. He lets the remark hang there, his eyebrows raised, an expectant look on his face.
"Leonid. Ivanov. Good morning. I trust you slept well? I assume you're here for your daily payment?"
Leonid shoots Ivanov a look, however Ivanov keeps his eyes trained on you. His look is sly and calculating.
"That we are..."
"Well. The good news, men, is that you shall recieve a payment. The bad news is, there will be a slight reduction from the usual rate. I can afford to give you five silver each today, instead of your usual six. Now, I know and fully understand you'll be disappointed about this. But...I'm sure you'll appreciate that, under the circumstances, the situation is difficult.
We have no means of resupply, and we have found little or no treasure thus far. However, as you know, the Holy Inquisition, as an office of the Church of the Two-Headed Basilisks, is by no means short of funds. As soon as we return to civilisation, once our journey is complete, I assure you that each of you will be paid in full for each and every day of continued service, plus added interest. The Basilisks are generous to the faithful."
Ivanov smiles, a leering smile. You have a feeling he rather hoped you'd say something like that.
"Well now. That's a pity indeed, isn't? So how is it then, that that doddering old fool Faugno suddenly has a shiny new sword, from the armouries of the Inquisition, no less?"
Leonid turns to face Faungo, his hand on the pommel of his sword. "Hands off the steel if you want to keep them, old man."
Lygan's eyes burn with indignation.
"What sort of idiot are you, man?! Has the salt addled your mind? Do you know why I hired Faugno here? In case it has escaped your dull-witted attention, I hired him as my porter! Do you know what porters do, Ivanov? They carry things. This man carries my things. He carries my backpack, full of my personal items, and now he carries my sword. Why does he carry my sword? Because I am carrying another one..."
Here, Lygan raises his voice up a notch and a wrathful fire dances menacingly in his eyes.
"...WHICH I TOOK MYSELF FROM BENEATH THE JAWS OF A DRAGON! Now, men, if you wish to end your contract with the Holy Inquisition today, and walk home by yourselves, without the food and water I PURCHASED FOR YOU, with only your armour and the weapons you brought, then BE MY GUEST! Please, when you arrive back in Galgenbeck, do give my very best regards to Inquisitor Abbiorn Hansen when you explain to him you abandoned your mission because YOUR EMPLOYER HANDED ONE OF HIS WEAPONS TO HIS PORTER! Or...or...how about this? You continue working for me, take your five silver, and perhaps we'll all get through this together like MEN!"
"You fucking high and mighty prick. How dare you speak to me like that. You're gonna die down here, you know that don't you? This fucking pointless trek will be the death of all of you. I won't let you do that to me. I'm fucking out of here."
He hauls his heavy pack from his shoulder and throws it at your feet, then spits upon it.
"Come, Leonid. He can shove his precious cannon up his fucking arse for all I care."
Ivanov turns his back to you and walks away. The colour drains from Leonid's face. He looks at Ivanov's receding form, then at you. With the hesitation of a man who is certain he has made the wrong decision, he takes off his pack and throws it down beside Ivanovs, then hurries after him.
"FOOLS!" Lygan shouts after them, at the top of his lungs.
Liselotte, Fergus, Drathamar and Rateater stare at you, wide eyed and silent.
"That's why I never work with hired muscle if I can help it." Says Fergus with a sigh.
"Would you like help with that gun, Lygan?" He offers.
"Sons of dogs" Lygan says, staring off at the retreating forms of the brawlers.
"Faugno, open their packs and transfer whatever food and water they left to ours. Yes, Fergus, let us carry the Basilisk together. It is a shame we must conserve our water: I feel I should wash it from the stain of their apostate hands."
Faugno speaks quietly in your ear as the now diminished party prepares for the day's hardships:
"I'm not sure I feel safe knowing those cut-throats are out there...no safer than I do with these folks..."
"I expect they will not last a day, Faugno. Walking away, through this hell, without food and water? They must have lost their minds! If dehydration doesn't take them, then some foul beast will. Take heart, friend. Let us be wary, but stick together."
He pats the porter on the back, before transferring the remaining Basilisk shot into a single pack, heaving it onto his own back. Now fully ready to go, he addresses the assembled party, holding aloft the Princess' blade.
"Friends, hear me! Rateater, our reptilian companion, has guided us thus far, serving as our faithful scout. Following his tongue, he brought us to this cavern, wherein we did find this rare treasure: the blade of the Princess betrothed to the very King who defiled the lost church and brought about this curse of salt. It may be that the sword guided us to itself; in either case, it was the will of Verhu that we discover it, and Verhu did choose a mortal instrument fashioned in his likeness to show us the way...for your part in that, you have our thanks, Rateater."
The inquisitor lowers the sword and extends an open hand toward the snake-man, before lowering his hand again.
"Also, in the cavern, wherein the sword was found, did I learn that this very bird that sits upon my shoulder belonged to a sorcerer who marched forth with this legendary forgotten king, who wielded a blade identical to that of his beloved. This bird, my friends, knows the way to where his master fell, by his master's side! With the bird of the sorcerer, and the blade of the princess, which no doubt longs to be reunited with its twin, I shall henceforth lead us toward our goal, and our destiny!"
Your companions acquiesce to your taking the lead. Rateater himself seems particularly subdued and makes no effort to challenge your demotion of his status from scout to follower.
And so you set off. Becoming once again minute pilgrims, dwarfed in this immensity of salted nothingness.
Corax soars high above, guiding your way where he can. But the going is hard. You learn quickly how much easier it is to walk in a path which someone else has carved out before you. The landscape is merciless. Caution and keen powers of observation are paramount to survival. Several times your attention wanders and you almost meet with disaster, once almost stumbling into a drift buried shard-crystal which would snare, shred and bleed you dry in a moment, or worse, leave you half alive, to be picked apart by whatever creatures are drawn by carrion in these wastes. But your faith and determination win out, you stay true to the path, avoiding the dangers in your way.
Until you stray into her domain.
At first, it is as if your legs are heavier. Your progress slows. Then you realise, something has caught on your boot. Some translucent streamer. You stoop to examine it. It is sticky, tough, thin. Your blood runs cold. Your eyes scan the chamber you entered some hours back for some sign, some confirmation of your fear.
And there she is. Eyes glittering in the dark above you.
Her slender ghost-white legs tense and flicker sending tiny vibrations along the intricate network of web she has spun through a vast portion of the chamber, only visible in certain light, from certain angles. She has felt you. Tasted your movements on the vast web which is her whole world. She unfolds her legs and begins moving down from her resting space among the stalactites. When she extends her body to its full length you are momentarily rooted, stricken. It is as if she has emerged from some other, loathsome dimension. She is dreadful. She is beautiful.
Eyes widening in horror, Lygan shouts.
"EYES UP, COMRADES! TO ARMS!"
The inquisitor scrambles to ready the Basilisk gun.
She moves uncannily, gossamer webs billowing fresh before her.
You go to ready the gun but in your haste, you find yourself caught on a strand, then another, then another, of her iridescent, half-invisible web. It is the same for Faugno and Rateater. For a moment panic snares you and you fear that it will be the same for all of you, and she will descend, slow, leisurely, to consume all at her will. But you free an arm, and with a sweep of your greatsword you free the rest of you. You look over at your struggling companions and see they are also making progress at freeing themselves.
Meanwhile, Liselotte, unhindered by webs, or so she thinks, pulls back on her bowstring, sighting down the shaft of her arrow, however invisible threads of gossamer have wrapped around the string. She pulls back, unsure why the resistance is not what she is used to, and pulls further. With a yell of frustration she yanks the string back a final time before it snaps completely. Liselotte curses profusely and reaches for her zweihänder, stuck point down in the ground next to her.
Fergus has better luck. He keeps still in the billowing webs, knowing better than to reposition amid the storm of snaring strands, and aims his crossbow with the precision of a fine artist. With a thunk the bolt he fires lodges itself in the thorax of the great beast as she skitters towards you and she rears and screams. An awful sound, keening and dire. One of her legs flicks at the bolt but it is lodged deep within her.
Drathamar summons dark energies to his finger tips, and a bolt of lightning leaps from his palm, but it only singes the hair on one of her legs.
She advances, circling round you, trying to draw you into different positions where you will become stuck anew and easier prey. All the while she billows out fresh strands of gross, sticky web from her spinner.
"Fergus!" Lygan shouts.
"Help me with the gun!"
Fergus runs over to you and the gun, surprisingly light and graceful. Now though, every other member of the party is snared and struggles.
You see her descend upon Rateater, swift as wildfire. Two fine, needle-like fangs unsheathe from her dripping maw. She attempts to pierce the serpent-man with her dreadful fangs, but Rateater is clearly not going down without a fight. He sways himself within his bonds and lashes out at her with his own savage maw. She assesses him momentarily then retreats from his snapping jaws, higher up into her webs and circles your group once more.
You and Fergus level the gun at her and fire. The shot echoes through the chamber and she rears at the sound and smoke violating her silent kingdom, though is unhurt.
Your companions struggle on in their bonds, failing to break free so far, apart from Rateater. You sense some ancient loathing between him and her, some cross species enmity which informs both of their actions in this fray.
"Damn it! We don't have time to reload, Fergus! Keep her at bay with your crossbow, man! I'll try something else..."
The worst happens.
You move to ready yourself and become caught again in her damned webs. Then you realise your companions are all stuck also, exactly as she wants you. She circles above your heads, her shadow thrown enormous against the high ceiling. She descends like rain upon Fergus, sinking her wicked fangs into the soft flesh of his neck. He screams but seems to remain conscious after she has retreated and struggling on with his bonds, having not succumbed to her venom.
You and Liselotte manage to free yourselves for now and prepare for her next onslaught.
Lygan draws the Princess' sword.
"Come, Lion's Maiden! Let us teach this fiend to fear our steel!"
You and Liselotte crouch low, your blades ready. You wait until she passes over your head and lash out with your blades, their edges singing through the air.
You miss her by a fraction, cleaving web where you would have cloven chitin had you swung a moment sooner.
Liselotte has more luck, but only with her timing. The blow she strikes comes in at the wrong angle and deflects off a limb where it would have severed it had she struck truer.
Fergus and Drathamar succeed in freeing themselves once more, but Rateater and Faungo remain fixed.
With frightening speed she swoops down on Rateater and grazes the back of his neck with her fangs, but you see he, like Fergus, does not succumb to the venom.
Lygan, seizing the opportunity, aims a strike at the spider with the Princess' blade.
Your blade rings against her carapace and splits it deep and wide, spilling foul fluids; hot and heavy gouts drooling from within. She hisses and retches with fury. Liselotte and Drathamar both attempt to capitalise on the wounds you inflict, Liselotte with her sword and Drathamar once again with his dark energies, however both of their strikes go wide.
The grievously wounded spider shrieks with rage as Faugno and Rateater manage to free themselves. She sprays more gossamer streamers at you and your party, while clutching several of her rear limbs to her abdomen, covering the horrific wound you inflicted.
The fresh strands on the air quickly binding you, Liselotte and Rateater.
You shout encouragement to Faugno as he hefts his newly gifted Inquisitorial Zweihander, however he is slow and clumsy with his swing.
"Fuck this" shouts Fergus, drawing his battleaxe. He leaps at her as she passes, but she is too swift for him and his blow fails to connect.
It is Drathamar who surprises you all, using the stick Faugno gave him on that terrible lakeshore as a spear, he thrusts it at her abdomen as she passes, and while the blow he lands is not lethal, it does enter the wound you already opened in her dreadful belly, and she howls at the fresh pain.
Within a moment she is upon Liselotte, finding weakness in her armour. Her fangs drive deep but her venom also fails to incapacitate the Lion's Maiden.
In another flurry of movement and web, all but Faugno become snared. He hefts his mighty blade, once yours, and swings again, having a better sense of its operation this time.
The blade arcs through the air, but she crosses two limbs as she flurries past, and the blow rebounds harmlessly off her chitin.
All but Liselotte and Fergus struggle free from her web. How you loathe this creature and her sticky trap.
In a flash she descends upon Liselotte again, striking her deeply with her awful fangs. As she retreats to safety you see Liselotte slump in the webs that hold her. Either the spider's venom has taken hold, or something much worse has happened...
Bursting from his silken bonds, blade in hand, Lygan stares, wide-eyed, at the Lion's Maiden.
"Liselotte!"
With a roar Fergus tears himself free of his bonds, but fresh ones have settled on all but him and Rateater.
The grotesque creature swoops down upon you, moving unbelievably fast, but you jerk yourself out of the way at the last moment, her fangs, slick with venom, rake the air where your face had been. She retreats before Fergus or Rateater can land a blow on her.
And as she does she rains down yet more endless gossamer, light as silk, strong as steel. Strands of it entangle Fergus and Rateater, and without hesitation she scurries down upon Rateater, driving her awful fangs deep into his shoulder, pumping the wound full of her vile venom. He convulses and spasms, gasping for air, then he too hangs limp in the web, as Liselotte before him.
The light of hope begins to fade. Can you allow this monstrosity to be the architect of your end, here, in this loathsome catacomb in the salt-crusted bowels of the earth?
You all struggle in vain against the ever growing ligatures of silk fastening you in place.
You lose sight of the beast and panic, trying to turn your head to locate her. It is then that she strikes. Her fangs sink deep into your side, passing through your robes as if there were parchment. You feel the cold sting of her venom enter your body, and then… numbness. Vision fringed in foggy white. Sounds distant and vague. You struggle against the weight of consciousness, trying to regain yourself, your senses, but everything is so heavy. You manage to keep your eyelids open but that is all.
You pray your companions will come to your aid. You pray that the last thing you see will not be her awful, hungry maw, feeding slowly upon your paralysed, helpless body…
But she turns her attention to Drathamar, apparently satisfied that you are in a stupor.
It is hard to tell what’s going on around you, but you hear Drathamar scream.
“I’m free!” Calls Faugno. “As am I!” echoes Fergus.
You pray they can finish this.
Your prayers fade to dimness, then darkness, still fringed with white. A snag in your heart tells you you must stay awake, you must fight, but the softness of unnatural sleep steals over you and you drift, you drift, you drift deep into the dark waters of unquiet sleep.
And in that sleep you are not alone.
Shadows. Hungry shadows. Faces with too many eyes. Fingers of grossly distended hands, translucent and white, tap tattoo rhythms, maddeningly quiet, upon your skull.
You see a butchered lion.
A serpent encircles a spider, a spider encircles a serpent.
Faces of those you know, twist and change. Hatch into unspeakable things.
Pain tugs at your heart.
You wake with a gasp. Shadows flicker over a low ceiling, just feet above you. Is it…? You reach for your sword, try to claw your way from the web that binds you but…
You lie on your back, your robes under your head, a cool cloth on your forehead. Faugno leans over you. A fire crackles close. He looks to his left.
“Praise be, he’s awake.”
He sighs and sits back.
“Gentle now, sir. You’ve been out cold for hours.”
Lygan blinks his eyes rapidly as his brain slowly tries to regain awareness, still half-delirious, and tries to get a look around, to see what's going on.
"Water!" he feebly croaks.
Faugno gently lifts the waterskin to your mouth.
“Easy now, sir.”
Lygan gulps down the cool liquid, then pulls away.
"Where are we, Faugno?"
“In a shallow cave, just beyond where… where we…”
His eyes lower.
“We’re safe now, sir.”
Lygan sits up.
"What happened, Faugno? Where are the others?"
You see them as you sit up. Drathamar looks awful. His skin is grey and his lips are blue. He shivers, even though he sits near the small fire. Fergus sits next time him, his face long and shadowed.
Fergus looks up.
“Saved us, e’ did. Gutted that wretched beast just before she…”
Silence falls again.
“They’re gone.” He says, softly.
Lygan's eyes widen and he inhales through his nose, his lips tight, as he desperately scans the cave, wanting to disbelieve, hoping that Rateater and Liselotte are still there, in the shadows, and that this is still a dream.
“I tended to your wound, sir. Drathamar’s too. I used the medicine chest.”
He says this as a statement of fact. You imagine before, when he was your servant, your porter, he would have asked your permission or waited for your instruction. But so much has changed now. So much has been lost. There are no hierarchies in grief. There is just need. All rendered meaningless, save that which is required to continue on, and even that struggles to hold on to its greater purpose.
Silence reigns. Faugno holds something up in his hands.
“We found this in the…”
The next word he speaks is almost drowned in the silence which presses down upon you all.
“Web.”
Lygan stares at the thing in Faugno's hands, still trying to take everything in.
Faugno holds in his hand a shield. A shield of metal and… blood… and… teeth. Bloodstained jaws marked with cuts yawn wide on the front of it. Peering between the teeth you witness a most disturbing illusion. Deep within its throat, deeper than the width of the shield should allow, a squirming wall of flesh and entrails writhes. The teeth of the shield move slightly as if it were… breathing. A most horrendous sight.
Lygan's eyebrows raise high on his forehead.
"What blasphemous thing is this, Faugno?!"
“I know not, sir. I can’t stand to look upon it, but I also can’t deny that, wielded against our foes, it could be a most powerful weapon indeed.”
Lygan frowns.
"But at what cost, I wonder?"
He studies the shield for a moment.
"Leave it with me, Faugno. I shall consider what it is to be done with it."
The inquisitor looks at Fergus.
"Where are they, Fergus? Liselotte and Rateater?"
Fergus looks up at you across the weak flames.
“Out there, in the salt. Her sword marks where they lie.”
"I would see them."
Lygan pulls himself to his feet and dresses himself in his robes.
"Will you accompany me, Faugno?"
“I will, sir.”
Faugno gets to his feet also and leads you out of the shallow cave and into the cavern you fought the spider in. There is a smell in the air of burned hair and you see that your companions, once freed appear to have burned the web and nest of the great beast, along with her body which lies blackened and charred some distance away.
Closer, two small mounds are marked out by the lion-pommelled zweihänder, point down in the ground, acting as headstone.
“There they lie, sir.” Says Faugno, his voice hollow, his eyes red.
Lygan walks ahead a few paces, up to the mounds. He reaches out a gloved hand and touches the lion's head pommel.
"Was it worthy, Lion's Maiden?" he says, quietly.
He pauses a moment in silence, then turns and walks back to his friend.
"Fergus said you killed the horror, Faugno. Did I not say you were the best of us?"
Faungo lowers his head humbly.
“There’s… something I would tell you, sir.”
"By all means."
“When we were… when we cut them down and laid them on the ground, I thought…”
He rubs his hand slowly over his forearm.
“Well sir, forgive me if it were ghoulish, but I had a look in their packs to see if there might be anything we could use, any scrap of food or waterskin…”
He looks up, straight into your eyes, fear on his face.
“They were empty. Both of them. Not a stitch of food nor drop of water among their belongings. And then I realised… I don’t think I ever saw them eat nor drink…”
“There was of course the ale in the tavern but… now I find I question even that…”
Corax flies down from some high perch where he has waited, unseen.
He lands upon the pommel of the zweihänder. And looks down at the lonesome graves.
“Liar.” he croaks.
"Oh, there you are, Corax. I was wondering what became of you!"
Lygan looks back to his friend.
"This is most concerning, Faugno. Most concerning indeed. You did well to tell me. If they have no need of food, nor drink..."
He looks back toward the cave where the glow of the fire shimmers against the dark expanse of the cavern.
"...then what are they?"
“What indeed, sir…”
He shudders.
“But sir, while we travel with them and do not out number them, I do not think it wise to confront them. They’ve kept their part of the night watch faithfully, and they seem distraught about their companions as we are. Should we maintain the status quo? Certainly their steel has been there when it mattered more than once…”
He rubs his bristled chin. How you both long to shave, to bathe, to don clean clothes and sleep in soft beds. Those things seem as alien to you now as whoever, or whatever, it is that you travel with.
Lygan has a flashback memory of the great salted wyrm in the lake of tar, grinning with draconic hubris.
"The filth practically reek of the sea."
He looks at Faugno, directly in the eyes, and speaks in a low voice.
"Listen to me, Faugno. Listen very carefully. I brought you here, away from the others, not to mourn the dead, but that we may speak candidly with one another. There is a certain way I behave when I am in their company; I adopt the spirit of Arkh, Head of Deception. But with you, Faugno, I only speak truth. Truth, unbridled, like that which flows from the tongue of Holy Verhu. Now hear truth, friend: I am not distraught, nor do I grieve the loss of either Liselotte, nor that serpent, nor would I mourn the loss of the others yonder. As I told you before, I trust them not, nor have I from the very start."
Lygan nods at the cave.
"Those two have served us well, that much is true. Drathamar is feeble, but his powers of sorcery have certainly saved our lives, more than once. Fergus is strong, and brave, and not unskilled with the crossbow; without him, I wonder if that bear-creature would have torn us to sheds? He would be the harder of the two to kill. But I believe we could do it, if we needed to. And if we were to do so, we should strike when least expected, and when they are weak, as Drathamar now is. And yet...yet...we barely survived the encounter with that spider. It is only the will of HE that we are able to hold this very conversation. Would we survive another attack such as that, without them? I know not how much further we must travel before we find the source of this legend, Faugno. Could we make it, the two of us, without them? I know not. What is their true intention, I wonder? What do they really seek?"
The inquisitor sighs.
"We should watch those two, Faugno. Watch them tonight, when we make camp. See if either of them eat or drink. Then, perhaps, we shall know. But tell me...where is my gun? Has it been cleaned and loaded?"
"It has, sir. We're fighting a losing battle against the salt down here, I fear the corrosion may get to it at any time, but for now she’s sound and ready to fire."
"Good man, Faugno. Now, we should return to the others, before they grow too suspicious of our absence. Come, Corax!"
Lygan holds out a hand to the bird.
Corax glides to your outstretched hand and hops up to your shoulder.
The three of you return to the shallow cave, little more than a low ceilinged cleft in the rock.
When you return to your place by the fire, Fergus says, with a soft, hollow voice:
"She thought you were a prick, lad. But that doesn't mean she wasn't fond of you."
Lygan smiles.
"She was not wrong to think of me that way, Fergus. I do try to be a thorn in the side of heretics, ever driving them towards repentance and True Faith."
The inquisitor sits before the fire.
"Are we to make camp here tonight, friends?"
"No sense in going further today." Speaks Drathamar, his voice small and broken. He does not take his evens off the small, flickering flames.
"How fare you, Drathamar? You do not look so well..."
He looks up, weakly.
"The venom from that creature has drained me. I fear I am not as robust as you. And... The loss..." his voice trails off. Tears well in his eyes anew.
"Mmm."
Lygan nods, doing his best to feign empathy.
"May their souls rest in the Shimmering Fields."
After pausing a respectful moment, he looks over to Faugno.
"I hunger, Faugno. Shall we open your pack and eat some of our rations before we rest for the night?"
He turns back to face Fergus and Drathamar.
"We must surely all be hungry after today's...exertions."
Drathamar closes his eyes to quell the tears.
"I could not think to eat after burying a friend." He whispers. Fergus puts his arm around Drathamar and leans his head against his shoulder.
Lygan watches them a moment, then gets up from his spot by the fire and moves toward where his gear is stored, checking it over.
"Yes, it is a fine shield. Like the bitter mouth of Gorgh, hungering for the praise of his twin."
He opens his pack and finds a half-eaten block of lard from Leonid and Ivanov's stash. Making himself comfortable, as much as he can, he takes a bite out of this, washed down with sips of water from his skin, occasionally glancing over toward the fire.
Silence descends, punctuated by the spitting and crackling of the fire.
"I'll take first watch." Says Fergus, moving to position himself in the mouth of the cave.
Drathamar lays down on his side, hugging his knees to his chest. He does not close his eyes.
Lygan leans over to Faugno, not taking his eyes off Drathamar. He whispers.
"Mayhaps you and I should take our own turns to watch. I shall go first."
Faugno inclines his head slightly to indicate his agreement. He sighs and arranges his pack for sleep.
Lygan pretends to sleep, but keeps a narrowly-open eye on the others all the while.
Not long into your secretive watch you see Drathamar close his eyes and sleep, or something like it, steal upon him. After two more hours you gently nudge Fuango awake. Not long after, it seems, Fergus returns quietly. He looks down at Drathamar, great sympathy in his eyes. He slides over to you and shakes you gently. You leave the cave for your second watch. You will not get much rest this night.
Fitful sleep and restless waking. You oscillate between these two states all through the night. Between Faugno and yourself you keep your own secret watch, but observe nothing to further incriminate your companions.
Morning, or that which you designate in its place, since time and time of day are abstractions down here, dawns, crystalline and cold. You brace yourself for another day, facing whatever new horrors may come in this subterranean labyrinth, and the growing uncertainty you nurture towards your 'companions'.
You go through your supplies and discover the salt has gotten into one of the bags containing basilisk shot and corroded five shots into near powder. It's a wonder that nothing else has been ruined, so ruthless and inescapable it is.
"Damn this cursed salt-pit" says Lygan as he watches the remains of a corroded Basilisk shot crumble between his fingers. He turns to Faugno.
"Did you sleep at all, my friend?"
Faugno rubs at his salt-scoured face and reddened eyes.
"Snatches here and there, sir. Enough... Maybe."
The inquisitor leans in closer.
"Did you see them eat or drink aught?"
"Nay, sir. Neither crumb, nor drop."
Fergus is adjusting the straps on his pack.
"Morning lads. What say you I lead the scouting today?"
"Nay, Fergus. You will no doubt need to support Drathamar, I think, for does his heart not remain most sore? The situation is as it was; the bird here knows the way to his master's grave...and that is where we will find this forgotten King, and the crown of legend. I shall go forth as leader once more, wielding the sword that longs to find its mate!"
Fergus nods in acquiescence.
"I pray we find it soon." He looks over his shoulder at Drathamar who has stepped out of the cave.
"I'm worried for Drathamar. He has an ill look about him. None of us have taken... yesterday well, but him worst of all."
The inquisitor considers a moment.
"Do you know, Fergus...I have reconsidered your offer. I think perhaps you should scout ahead today for us, after all. I myself shall offer Drathamar some...spiritual counsel. The bird may guide you just as well as I."
Fergus nods.
"Aye lad, you had your turn, allow me mine. And go easy on him, eh? He needs kindness and time."
"I understand."
Fergus nods.
"Very well. Death won't wait. We'll say our farewells and be off."
He and Drathamar wander out to the salt covered mounds that mark the final resting place of their—your—companions. They stand a moment, their heads bowed. Drathamar reaches out and touches the lion pommel on Liselotte's sword. The salt is already eating away at the blade. They return to you.
"Off we go then." Says Fergus, his brow heavy, his face long and wearied.
"Lead on, brave Fergus."
And so you set out.
The graves recedes, fading from sight, fading from thought.
Fergus leads you across the ends of this cavern which took so much. First Leonid and Ivanov. Then Rateater and Liselotte. The toll now paid, you leave. Or try to.
The ceiling slopes down slowly, over hours travel, to the floor. In previous caverns similar ceilings have cloven and split, offering wide and varied openings into new caverns, new spaces.
This ceiling closes over you like the jaw of a trap. Sealing to the floor with barely a fissure betraying its smoothness.
And so you continue. It takes many hours, following the wall along, until you find a series of cracks wide enough to fit through, leading to another chamber.
Fergus, having passed through once unharmed, offers to wait and watch while the rest of you squeeze through.
It’s tight, filled with abrasive surfaces and sharp edges. Like being passed through a woodcarver’s toolbox over and over.
Somehow though, you each emerge largely unscathed. Your skin is calloused all over from many days exposure to salt and hardship. A few more scrapes is nothing in this ablating wilderness.
Fergus, however, struggles when he follows. You hear him cursing:
“It was easy the first time! What’s changed?”
There is scuffling and swearing and then a metallic tearing from within the crevasse.
“Oh blast!”
Fergus emerges somewhat sheepishly from the crack. His chainmail hangs, shredded and useless, from his shoulders.
He marches on, clearly embarrassed by the accident.
Lygan silently takes note that Fergus' defences are compromised. He glances over to where Drathamar wanders nearby.
"How well did you know the others, Drathamar? Liselotte and Rateater."
Drathamar still looks drained, but less pallid than yesterday. He winces visibly at your use of his deceased companion’s names.
“I had known Liselotte for a day when you arrived. Rateater for a few more. I found him on the road, feasting on… well… rats. I have lost people in my life before and it is always the same. Each takes a little piece of me with them.”
He smiles a tired, sad smile.
"Pray, forgive me for saying so, yet it seems to me you grieve as one who has lost life-long friends."
“You are forgiven” he smiles, attempting humour.
“Why do you wish to interrogate my grief so, Lygan?”
"Oh, I can't help myself. Interrogation is my job, you see."
Lygan smiles.
"Have you travelled much? Before this expedition, I mean. Or did the management of your estate consume most of your time?"
“The estate, while I was there, consumed not just my time, but my life. It robbed me of my youth, and my face. And ever since leaving, just on the cusp of manhood, I have travelled. People are not so welcoming to a man of my… looks. So I wandered from town to town, church to library, learning, working, applying what I had learned here and there to earn the necessities of survival. There were many paths arrayed before me when I was young. Had I known what awaited me then… I would have worked hard to choose another.”
His eyes have a far away, glazed look. He is lost in thought for a moment.
“And you, Lygan? Had you travelled much before this?”
"No. When I was younger, HE called me to serve the Church. Ever has that been my destiny. I have spent my youth cloistered within the Office of the Inquisition in Cathedral's Shadow, serving the Arch-Priestess of the Two-Headed Basilisks, studying our doctrines and history. There was never another path for me. Until my superiors saw fit to send me upon this one."
He looks at you and smiles, placing a hand upon your shoulder.
“I pray this is the start of your journeys, not the end of them.”
Lygan meets Drathamar's look, a smile in the corner of his mouth.
"Do you pray, Drathamar? Or is Schleswig as corrupted as the stories I have heard?"
He pauses.
“Forgive my reticence, Lygan, but to me prayer is a deeply personal matter.”
Lygan looks him in the eye a little longer in silence.
"Well...in truth, I know not where my journey will end. I hope, some day, back to where it started: to Galgenbeck, the greatest city that ever was. But only Verhu knows. Only Verhu. I pray to him. I pray for the strength to face the truth, unafraid. To embrace it. To glory in it. It would not do to hide from the truth, would it, Drathamar? Cowards and faithless men hide from it, hoping it can be escaped. But, in the end...only the truth can set us free."
He shrugs.
“What is truth? Liselotte wished for a worthy death, but the truth of it is she died stuck in a web, eaten from inside out by spider venom. The truth is we’re all scared and alone and no one is coming to our aid. There is no freedom in that for me, Lygan. But I would talk no more of this. Leave me with my thoughts.”
He walks on.
"You know, if I survive this adventure, I'd also love to spread Verhu's Truth to other lands as well, some day!" Lygan shouts after him.
"Across the Endless Sea! Don't suppose you ever travelled aboard a ship in those journeys of yours? I've heard the smell of the sea-air does wonders for a troubled mind!"
“Why must you prattle on so, Lygan?” Drathamar snaps.
“Forgive me. My nerves are strained, my emotions raw. But really, Lygan, I wish for solitude now. Perhaps we can talk more later, should you wish. For now, enough.”
He turns away.
Lygan smirks and chuckles quietly to himself, shooting a glance over his shoulder to Faugno, holding up the rear of the gun.
You walk in relative silence, exchanging the odd quiet word or look with Faugno.
You pass through towering columns carved by gods know what winds. You pass through stinking brine pools, and eerie, glowing forests of tinkling salt trees.
You wonder if you’d recognise the sound of wind or the song of trees, real wind, real trees, if you heard them now. Has the salt gotten into your mind too? Have your senses crystallised? Has this land begun to claim you, and would it allow you to leave, should your quest succeed? If you did leave, would it be as emissary from these saline wastes, bringing salt into the upper world with each step you took, withering harvests and spoiling wells? Salted harbinger of an encroaching doom from the earth’s dead heart.
Odd thoughts. Wrong thoughts.
You shake your head as if to clear it of these awful fantasies.
Presently one chamber leads into another. This new one is darker, lacking the usual phosphorescent glow you have become accustomed to. But something else about it is different.
There is a large, shallow pool in the centre. The softest of pale blues in colour. It takes you a moment to realise what strikes you as so odd about the lake, and then you see it. The shore. There is no heavy rim of salt. Just bare rock. Can it be?
Is this fresh water?
Lygan stares silently into the pool, salt-crusted lips teetering on the edge of desperation.
"What think you, Fergus?"
Faugno, alongside you, stares in slavish wonder.
Fergus scratches his beard
“What looks too good to be true almost always is… However, we’re almost entirely out of water…I think perhaps it may be worth the risk?”
"Yes...yes...why don't you re-fill your skin. You did bring it with you from the cave, I trust?"
Fergus turns to you, a little sheepish.
“I did but… well, tell you the truth, Lygan, we ran out of supplies a day or two back. Been toughing it out, we have. Didn’t want to bring it up because I figured you were about to run out also…”
He pulls an empty waterskin from his belt, unstoppers it and fills it from the lake.
He drinks. Slow sips at first and then deep gulping drafts.
He is panting when he takes the waterskin from his lips.
“Sweet heavenly nectar that’s good. Finer than any ale I ever did taste.”
Lygan raises an eyebrow.
"And what does it taste like, Fergus?"
Fergus stares at you incredulous, then breaks into a laugh.
“Like good, clean, fresh water you terrible oaf!”
Lygan turns to Faugno.
"We still have Leonid's and Ivanov's skins, now empty. Let us fill them with this water...if water it be, but not mix it with our own. This is a world entirely alien to us; how can we be certain what is safe to drink?"
“A fair point, Lygan,” says Drathamar who has unstopped and filled his own waterskin, and drank deep of the water from the pool.
“But at this point it’s safer for us to drink this than nothing at all.”
He pauses, something has caught his eye.
“Look! There! In the water! Fish!” He exclaims.
And he’s right. Four or five small fish, the length of fingers dart around the shallows.
"Fond of fish are you, Drathamar?"
Drathamar looks at you, clearly wearied by your constant probing.
“I’m fond of eating when my stomach is empty, man. Who is not?”
He stands up from attempting to catch the fish with his hands.
“Lygan. Your terminal intensity is detrimental to your relationships with those around you. We are heathens, fine. We are blasphemers. Good. But for god’s sake, man. What does water taste like? Do you like fish? I truly believe you are losing hold of yourself! We have fought together. We have died for each other, in this little group. If you cannot trust in people who have saved your life, then perhaps you are better going your own way?”
Fergus steps between you.
“He’s not wrong, Lygan, you’re a royal pain in the arse, but we’ve seen time and time again there is safety in numbers down here. Now both of you just stop it. You’re winding each other up and that’s winding me up. Now shut up and help me catch dinner.”
"I believe I only asked you if you were fond of fish."
Fergus huffs.
“And I believe I told you to shut up and catch dinner. We’ve had enough silliness today. Heavens above!”
Lygan instructs Faugno to lay the gun down on the shore and open up his pack. Having done so, he removes Ivanov's and Leonid's empty waterskins, then bends down and fills them up with the liquid in the pool.
“I believe we should camp here tonight.” Says Fergus after half an hour spent in fruitless pursuit of the illusive fish.
"As you wish, Fergus."
Lygan places down his things in a pile, a little further back from the shore. He whispers to Faugno.
"So they do drink, eh?"
Faugno prods one of the newly filled waterskins suspiciously.
“Shall we share our own watch again tonight, sir?”
"I think not; Verhu knows we need the rest, and last night's efforts revealed nothing to our profit."
Faugno looks uneasy, but it would appear that tiredness wins out over paranoia.
“Very well, sir. I bid thee good night.”
"Good night, my friend."
This place is an oasis.
If the subterranean expanse through which you have toiled is an outlying region of hell, then this azure chamber is surely the province of heaven alone.
The gentle sound of water dripping from the low ceiling into the pale blue pool augments the silence with a peacefulness you have not known. That perhaps you did not know was possible.
But it is not a lulling peacefulness which leads to the nodding of heads on watch. It is something to stay awake for. To be present in. Perhaps it is the contrast to all else you have seen down here which makes the stillness so profound. Should you live one day more or a
thousand, you feel that you would not know this sense of refuge again. And in that way, there is a sadness, a pain to it.
You cannot stay here. But there is a piece of this place that now will not leave you. It will travel with you, snagging at your mind with each step you take.
When you think you have slept well it will whisper: "Ah, but this bed is not so soft as those rocks by that blue lake in the dark."
When you think you have dined well it will say: "Ah, but this bread is not so fresh, this wine not so sweet as that meagre meal you ate by that blue lake in the dark"
And when you think you have found stillness of mind, stillness of spirit it will cry in outrage: "Ah! But this stillness is not so pure as that which is found between the most hateful places of the earth! By that blue lake in the dark!"
And so you will continue, most wretched of men, measuring all against the impossible standard of a memory of perfect rest in a period of ultimate hardship. Tortured as only one who has visited an oasis can be; a thorn of heaven in your mind.
And so you pass the night, by turns awake, by turns asleep, in a peace you will not know again.
When you wake, Drathamar approaches you.
He speaks with his hands clasped before him and his head down:
"I am ashamed, my friend. Last night, I was not myself. I was angry, with this place, with you, with myself. Anger is its own reward and seeks only to multiply sorrow. I was unjust in word and thought towards you,"
He looks up at you.
"Forgive me."
Lygan pulls himself up to a sitting position, brushing the salt from his hair and clothes.
"Come, sit with me, Drathamar."
The inquisitor smiles and gestures to the patch of salty ground next to him.
Drathamar settles down next to you, both facing the water.
Corax hops among the rocks of the shore, chasing the fish in the shallows.
After a moment, staring out across the water, Lygan speaks.
"It is you who must forgive me, Drathamar. I am known for my zeal for the One True Faith — it is why they chose me for this mission — and an officer of the Church's Holy Inquisition is relentless in his duty of questioning and cross-examining those we find suspect of heresy. Once I believe I am on a scent, I ruthlessly pursue it until the source is unearthed. I was given reason to doubt the integrity of both you and the others, but I realise now I put too much pressure on you at your time of grief, and for that it was I who acted unjustly."
Lygan smirks and gives Drathamar a friendly strike on the arm.
"But do not let me hear you confess faithlessness or blasphemy once we return to the world above; I would not wish to examine you again after all we have been through down here. Even if you are from Schleswig!"
Drathamar’s face, though still pale from the trials you have faced, floods with relief.
“I look forward to many robust debates with you on the nature of heresy when we are freed of this place, Lygan.”
Fergus stands off, his arms folded, smiling.
“Seeing you two talk like warms my heart it does,” He chuckles.
Drathamar points to Corax who is drinking from the pool.
“It would appear your friend has deemed the water safe also. Come! Let us quit this place before we decide to live here permanently.”
He raises to his feet and readies his pack.
"Fergus, will you scout for us again? There is more I wish to discuss with my friend here."
Lygan pats Drathamar on the arm.
You ready yourselves and set out with Fergus ahead, skirting the lake shore until you are past it.
After a time, the rock of the cavern takes on a shine which reflects back your torchlight. You recognise it as obsidian.
The cavern narrows to a large tunnel, and by degrees you come to feel that you are walking through one of the old, dead arteries of the earth.
Fergus is up ahead, not always in sight, but reappearing every few minutes to make sure you’re still following him.
Drathamar walks alongside you.
"You remember the guardian of this sword, Drathamar? That ancient dragon, whom I did best with cunning arts?"
Drathamar studies your sword with interest.
“I do indeed. A beast of no small cunning itself. That is a powerful blade to have fully captured the attention of such a beast.”
"Mmm. Well, that very dragon did say that you and your companions may know more than you are letting on, concerning the legend of the Cantigaster that we pursue. He also said that you..."
Lygan looks over at Drathamar.
"...reek of the sea. These words have troubled me greatly these past days."
Drathamar stops and looks at you steadily.
“So that explains the fish business. Do you know what I saw in that cavern, Lygan? An ancient, salt-ruined dragon, half blind and half crazed from isolation, toying with its food before eating it.”
Lygan smiles wryly.
"Failing to realise its food was all the while toying with it. But, I thought you might say that. In fact, I've been giving it all a good deal of thought. Do you know what I've come to realise? Out of all four of you that I met in the Jug and Crown, you're the only one with a plausible reason for coming all this way. Fergus wants to slay monsters. Is the world not full of them? Why come here? Liselotte wanted to die a worthy death. Yet, some days ago she spoke of retreat from here, or lack thereof, in terms of regret...and are there not a thousand other ways to die? Her story did not add up. What of Rateater? Well...pardon me for plain-speaking, but he could not articulate himself at all. Only you and this mysterious grimoire you seek, I find to be a convincing reason for undertaking such a perilous journey. Will you tell me of it, Drathamar? I am starting to feel it may be of some greater import than first I realised."
Drathamar turns, his face lost in shadow.
“Your suspicions seem to me…”
There is a long pause.
“...not entirely unfounded. But we each have our secret. For my part, my quest for the grimoire demanded more strength than I had at my disposal, so I allied myself to those better disposed to surviving such environments. Their motives were their own, but they served their purpose well, so I did not pry.”
He lowers his voice.
“As to the grimoire itself, through decades long studies I heard whispered tales of a grand sorcerer, Ibrakhir. Vague allusions and pale rumours hinted at great power, but I could find nothing more substantial, barely even legend. Until, by chance, I happened upon a reference to him in the legend of the Cantigaster. Such convergence provided me with the first real-world location for the sorcerer. You ask what his grimoire contains, Lygan? You ask what it is I seek?”
He steps toward you again, out of the shadows, his face set with grim determination.
“Power. Power more than mortal men may comprehend. I seek that which I have been denied my whole life…”
The air hums with dark energy. Black sparks tear through the shadows all around Drathamar, threatening to release darker things from the lightless dimensions of which shadows are their only barrier. His face tightens with the mania of one possessed.
And then, the energy fades. The shadows sigh back into themselves. The fierceness of his visage fades.
“It is the purest of truths, Lygan. Our nature, laid bare: men seek power and are destroyed by it. The closer I come to my prize, the more I sacrifice to reach it, the closer I come to my own ruin. It is, I believe, the same for each of us.”
"Ibrakhir, you say? Why, 'tis the very same sorcerer to which this bird once belonged..."
Lygan strokes Corax's feathers with a free hand, while looking askance at Drathamar.
"...if that ancient, salt-ruined dragon spake true, of course. But if so, then once before did this crow upon my shoulder lead the forgotten princess — first owner of this blade — along the path of its former master. Now, perhaps, it shall lead us to the location of this very grimoire you seek...if such a thing has survived all these long centuries...or ever existed at all."
Lygan pauses a moment.
"You have sacrificed much indeed, Drathamar, on your self-described path to ruin. Half of your allies are gone, and we have not yet reached our goal. Tell me, as you speak in terms of purest truth and nature laid bare: should you find this grimoire, what will you do with this so-called power? What do you even know of it?"
“I have sought it, or its like, so long that I no longer know what I would do when I found it. Or perhaps a part of me still knows, but it guards that information jealously, like an opium fiend guards his drug. When doors are closed to you, you search for another. Perhaps it even calls to me. Who could say.”
"Then I suppose we shall see in time. Only Verhu knows what is yet to be."
Drathamar nods, but remains silent.
You proceed on, picking your way through the tunnel, Fergus appearing every now and again in the distance to ensure the three of you are still following.
After another hour, you are just about to propose a rest, your joints aching, your feet and mind numb, when Fergus appears from behind a large boulder partially blocking the tunnel.
He looks grave.
“Up ahead… I think… I think we’ve found it.”
You and Drathamar exchange stunned looks. Perhaps your body had become so used to the rhythm of travel, your mind to the monotony punctuated by spells of violence, that you believed the journey was to have no end. Your heartbeat races, your breath catches in your throat.
You scramble to keep up with Fergus, who picks his way through the broken tunnel with practised ease. He stops suddenly, and gestures ahead of him.
“Down there.”
There is a fissure bisecting the floor of the tunnel, from which emanates a red glow.
Peering over the edge, you see a ledge, not far beneath you, bathed in fiery light.
Descending carefully down to the ledge, you turn and see what Fergus saw.
If it is not the very gate of hell then hell itself must be beyond all comprehension.
From the ledge where you stand, leading away from you, a narrow bridge of fire-blackened rock spans a river of pure magma. Roiling and seething, it scorches the air itself its fury. Across the bridge stands a mighty gate, flanked by crumbling pillars of a style from no known era. The gate itself is a mouth of fire, a wall of flame, and set within that flaming maw floats an enormous orb, a baleful eye, rolling constantly in its orbit.
The surface of the bridge is blackened and cracked from the hellish heat beneath it, but deeper, blacker lines of scorching scar it also, each pointing towards that hateful eye, set in the wall of fire.
Upon the bridge, those deeper scars terminate at the ruined remains of fire blackened skeletons, armour having melted and fused with the bones.
Lygan turns to look at Faugno, over his shoulder.
"May we switch ends, my friend? My shoulder aches!"
Lygan makes to lower the gun.
Faugno obliges.
“What think you, friends?” Calls Fergus over the rumbling hiss of the river of molten fire.
While changing places, Lygan whispers in Faugno's ear.
"Our time to act must be soon, friend. The time for word-games draws to a close. I trust these two less and less by the hour. Behind their masks, I believe they mean us harm. Be ready."
Lygan gives Faugno a pat on the shoulder and takes up the large gun again, this time in the firing position. This done, he calls out to Fergus.
"Is this the gate of our legendary 'church', Fergus? If so, do lead on!"
Fergus frowns and looks at the bridge.
He takes a step out onto the blackened rock and the rolling eye in the gate of fire opposite immediate thrums with energy and radiates a bright white light. Fergus steps back and the light of the eye diminishes.
“I don’t know, Lygan…”
The inquisitor cocks his head and smiles.
"Oh? What is it you don't know, Fergus?"
Fergus stoops to pick up a rock, then throws it across the bridge. It hasn’t even landed before the eye pulses white once more and a blinding lance of light slashes from it, vaporising the rock where it arced in the air.
“Perhaps you’d care to give it a try?”
"Oh, I see. The gate has a guardian. Well now, that is a problem, isn't it?"
“Lygan,” says Drathamar.
“Your sword…”
He gestures to the blade slung across your back. The edges of it glow white, shimmering and radiating a light similar to that of the eye guardian.
Lygan looks over his shoulder at the blade.
"Fancy that!"
He turns to the bird.
"What do you make of this, Corax? Is this the way to your master, Ibrakhir?"
Corax caws. There is no word, but there is affirmation in his cry.
"Mmm. I thought as much. Well, Drathamar, you who have studied so much into arcane secrets...what do you propose? Does yonder eye call to the sword, or the sword to the eye?"
“I could not say for certain, but I believe that the sword is the key to our safe crossing. Of both the bridge and the barrier of flame.”
Lygan narrows his eyes at the bridge and the flaming gate, pondering.
"Allow me a moment, friends, to consult the Scriptures of Verhu. When confronted with a great challenge...it cannot hurt to seek the enlightenment of HE."
With his free hand, Lygan flips open the leather case containing the scroll on his belt, and withdraws the scroll of Enochian Syntax. This he reads, quietly.
Having intoned the words on the scroll, Lygan looks into the face of Drathamar.
"Drathamar! Cross the bridge to the gate!"
Drathamar’s eyes widen in horror.
“Lygan, no…” he sputters even as his feet mechanically march him out to the blackened bridge.
The dreadful eye is upon him immediately, focusing white hot energies with deadly precision. He barely manages two steps before a beam of fiery intensity hits him square in the chest, burning a whole right through him.
There is a scream, wildly inhuman, but nonetheless unmistakable as that of a creature in mortal pain. The scream does not stop.
Nor do his feet, following their dreadful task in spite of all that is occurring.
He takes another step forward. The searing beam cuts diagonally upwards, slicing out through his right shoulder. And another step. The beam slices across at the level of his collar bone, his still screaming head tumbling, smoking, from his body and the bridge into the torrent of lava below.
His body keeps walking.
It is fully seven more steps before the smoking pile of blistered flesh that was once Drathamar has stopped moving.
The eye calms. Its light dims.
Fergus, dumbfounded through the evisceration of Drathamar, finds his voice.
“Fucking hell, lad. I’ve seen kinder ways of killing someone. I’m glad you saw through him though. I’ve had my suspicions for a while. I would have shared them with you if you hadn’t keep asking me to lead the party…”
"READY BASILISK, FAUGNO!"
Shouts Lygan, aiming the gun right at Fergus.
"FIRE!"
With a roar of thunder the basilisk gun erupts, hurling its deadly payload at Fergus. But he deftly steps to the side just before you fire; the shot barrels past him and across the chasm into the gate, consumed by the hungry wall of flame.
Within moments, Fergus is no longer Fergus.
His face splits and ruptures, horrific green tentacles tear the flesh of his head apart as an unearthly cry fills the chamber.
"TO ARMS, FAUGNO! SLAY THE FIEND!"
Lygan throws down the smoking Basilisk, swings his shield from his shoulder to his arm and draws the Princess' blade, then lunges at the thing that was Fergus.
The thing that was Fergus but is not Fergus anticipates your lunge and strikes with lightning speed at your outstretched arms. The blow is quick and expertly executed, causing you to drop the blade of the Promised Princess. It clatters to your feet.
Faugno, seeing you disarmed, raises his sword to his shoulder and swings hard at the abomination before you.
But the creature that was Fergus but is not Fergus merely sidesteps the blow, as if toying with you. Then, with hideous speed it charges you, attempting to slam into you and snare you with its steaming, glistening tentacles.
You manage to raise your shield between yourself and the creature’s attack. Its sickening tentacles wrap around the twisted iron-mounted mouth and within moments have dissolved it wholly from your arm. You wrench away from the fiend before it can get better purchase upon you.
With a flick of his boot, Lygan kicks the Princess sword up from the salt-encrusted shore of the magma-river. Light as air, the blade shimmers in the reddish glow of the fire for a brief second before the Inquisitor catches the hilt in a gloved hand and slashes it toward his foe!
You slash upward and catch the creature in the midriff, splitting it open from groin to navel. Foul fluids and writhing, ropey organs, splatter to the floor between its legs. The creature splays its face tentacles wide and howls at you in rage.
Grimly, Faugno steps forward, sword again on his shoulder, pivoting his whole body for an almighty swing at the beast.
But even gravely wounded though the foul creature is, it manages to deflect Faugno’s blow. It screams and retches as it rushes at you once more!
With no shield to raise, the fiend’s tentacles find you and wrap around you, enveloping you in the stinking, wretched darkness of itself. You smell your robes smoking and burning from its noxious touch.
The beast tightens its grip, and you feel your robes burn and melt upon you, but at least it is not eating away at your skin. Yet.
Lygan, caught in the grip of the foul abomination, staggers with what remains of his strength onto the threshold of the bridge, facing the burning portal with its ever-watchful eye.
You don’t see it, you can’t, but you hear the creature howling. At once the tentacles release their grip upon you and the creature dives from the bridge into the roiling tide of molten rock below, followed by a searing lance from the shining eye in the wall of flame. Fleeing fire into fire, the thing that was once Fergus is scorched to cinder within an instant. All that remains is the dying echoes of its howl in the fiery chamber.
You look across the bridge. The eye gazes at you intently, but does not pierce you with its sundering lance of flame. Nor does it avert its gaze from you.
The sword, still in your hand, glows brightly, bathing your body in an aura of light. Perhaps Drathamar was right, perhaps the sword is the key.
Lygan, panting with his recent exertion, standing legs slightly apart in the half-dissolved tatters of his robes, holds the gleaming sword up high above his head, his eyes wild with triumph—the light of the flames dancing within them. He shouts loudly, his voice echoing above the bubbling of the magma beneath.
"IF I, LYGAN, WANT THE BIRDS TO DROP DEAD FROM THE TREES, THEN THE BIRDS WILL DROP DEAD FROM THE TREES! I AM THE WRATH OF HE! THE EARTH I PASS WILL SEE ME AND TREMBLE!"
Faugno bellows, a wordless warcry of triumph and wonder.
Lying at your feet, among the detritus of burned death, you notice a single black, bloody gauntlet, and a vicious harpoon.
As the adrenaline begins to cool off, Lygan stoops down and examines these objects.
The harpoon is clutched in the hands of a skeleton, wearing blackened chainmail and with… what appears to be a wyvern’s stinger embedded into its skull.
The gauntlet appears to be designed with a single purpose in mind: inflicting grievous wounds upon its enemies.
Transferring the sword into his left hand, Lygan places his sword-hand inside the gauntlet, and lifts it up, testing the fingers for flexibility.
The gauntlet makes your sword arm feel more powerful, more deadly.
Lygan, smiling, places the sword back into the palm of the new gauntlet. He then stoops and seizes the harpoon from the bony hands of the skeleton, and kicks the blackened corpse off the bridge, into the magma below.
“Do you think it safe to cross now, sir?” Calls Faugno from the ledge behind you.
Looking over his shoulder, Lygan crosses back off the bridge, laughing. He walks over to Faugno, slams the Princess blade point-down into the salt and gives his former porter a hug.
"We did it, Faugno! We did it!"
He kisses the old man's forehead.
"The old dragon was right! Those 'friends' of ours were not what they seemed. You did well, my friend!"
Faugno laughs, tears rolling down his cheeks.
“The only soul I ever trusted down here was yours, sir!”
Lygan claps him on the upper arm.
"Likewise, Faugno. Likewise! But we have triumphed over our foes! HE WILLS IT!"
Lygan lets out another cry of unadulterated jubilation, before sticking Fergus' harpoon into the bank of the river, alongside the sword, and gently taking Faugno's cheek in his un-gauntleted left palm.
"Listen, Faugno, my friend. I know not what awaits us in this church ahead, across yon bridge, nor what true reason those four devils-in-disguise escorted us here from Saltburg. And we may never know, for they now burn in the pits of Nech, in fires unquenchable, where we cannot ask them."
Lygan, still holding Faugno's cheek, turns to gaze upon the baleful eye of flame for a moment, before looking at his friend once more.
"And Faugno...we must both accept that we may not live to tell another soul of this venture we have thus far endured. Yet, take heart, for we do not seek long life, nor our own glory — for these things do wither and die — but only the glory of HE, who spake the Truth to mankind. But, Faugno, by Verhu's teeth, man, we will face whatever is to come together, and by HE's grace we will put an end to all heresy therein, as I did swear upon this sacred blade!"
Lygan reaches out with the gauntlet and grips the pommel of the Princess' sword.
"Now, come, my friend, we must make ready to set out across this bridge, taking only what we need."
Lygan tears off what remains of his Inquisitorial robes and tosses them into the magma; he is now shirtless, wearing only a pair of hose and his belt. He also removes his backpack with the remaining Basilisk shot and places it next to the discharged gun on the bank. After that, he pulls the empty waterskins and empty oil lantern from Faugno's backpack and dumps them alongside the other discarded equipment.
With the excess gear now lying in a pile near the bridge, the Princess sword in his gauntleted hand, and the harpoon in his left, Lygan stands poised for action.
"Are you ready, my friend?"
“I am ready, sir. Whether fate or misfortune awaits, we shall face them together.”
"Then walk by my side, and take hold of the hilt of my sword; the grip is long enough for two hands. Do not let go, for only the sword will protect us from the eye of fire."
The two of you grasp the sword and walk forth onto the bridge. The light shining from the blade envelops you both. The eye, rage-filled and dreadful follows you as you proceed before it. Soon, you are over the bridge and standing directly beneath the eye, it stares down at you with all the hatred and scorn of the world focused into a single gaze. The heat from the fiery gate before you is immense, almost intolerable.
“What shall we do, sir? How shall we pass it?” Faugno asks, his voice small and fearful.
"Fret not, Faugno. This terrible eye fears naught but this sword, but look how greatly it fears it! With it, we shall prevail! Come! Let us together plunge the blade into this wall of fire."
You swing the blade forward and cleave a mighty wound in the wall of flame. The flames shudder and part, the eye falters, rolling madly in its orbit. The flames of the barrier dim, then die. The eye cracks then dissolves to dust. The way is open before you.
As you pass through the gate, now quenched of its fire, you are overcome by a sensation of having done something terrible.
It strikes you that the creatures which posed as your party members wanted you to come this way, wanted to use you to deliver the sword to this barrier in order to sunder it.
You wonder in cold, dumb horror what forces you have let into this place, or perhaps what you have released.
Beyond the dead wall of fire, the heat turns to cold and humidity. A courtyard, once open to the sky, is now a chamber of stagnant air, covered in salt. There are no footprints. There are no sounds. Only an overwhelming sense of solitude. Crab exoskeletons, and fossilized algae marks on the white mantle. Two statues of sea serpents representing a forgotten sea god, guard the entrance to the temple before you. The temple you have sought.
"Look what we have here, Faugno. The door of an ancient heathen temple! Behold, statues of false gods guard the way. See how they mirror one another, arranged in mockery of the Two-Headed Basilisks."
Lygan points the harpoon to and fro between the sea-serpent effigies.
"If this ancient king of legend did ride to desecrate this place, then he did well, and we follow in his footsteps, armed with the blade betrothed to his."
Lygan strides toward one of the statues to inspect it.
The statues are impressive representations carved in stone, now broken and covered in dehydrated algae and salt.
The Inquisitor reaches out an iron-clad finger from his gauntlet and scratches LYGAN WAS HERE in the layer of salt.
A sound from behind you, quiet as the grave, catches your attention. You whirl round to see two figures crossing the bridge. They shamble as they walk. Their heads writhe with appendages which should not be there.
As they come closer you can make out their garb, or what remains of it.
It is the ruins of Rateater and Liselotte, their true forms no longer masked by the skins they wore.
“Well done, Lygan” calls the thing that inhabited Liselotte, in a gross, ruined approximation of her voice.
“We could not have broken through the barrier without you. Now, you will take us to the Cantigaster.”
Snarling, Lygan switches the weapons between his hands — sword to left, harpoon to gauntleted right — hurling the true Fergus' weapon directly at the false Liselotte.
The Javelin strikes this mockery of the Lion’s maiden in the side, tearing open and spilling forth its foul innards, but still it advances.
They have entered the courtyard where you stand. You prepare yourself. Both creatures hurl themselves at Faugno. That which was Rateater he is able to sidestep, but in doing so Faugno steps right into the path of the false Liselotte.
She wraps her foul tentacles around him in an instant. He barely has time to scream. But he stares at you in hopeless terror as her acidic tentacles turn his skin and bones to pulp. Within seconds Faungo is reduced to a steaming pile of flesh.
“We outnumber you” hisses the one that was Rateater.
“Follow our instructions and you shall live.”
"So you've found your tongue at last, serpent?"
The Inquisitor snarls.
"Well, now hear mine, both of you! Hear me speak forth words of judgement upon you, devil-spawn! False ones! I shall never follow you! I only wish I had slain you all back in the Jug and Crown! Though it is too late for that, I shall slay you now, or die in the attempt! Think you I desire to live? The road to salvation lies in mortification of the flesh! A lesson in which I shall now educate you, for I AM THE WRATH OF HE!"
Lygan takes the Princess' sword in both hands and aims a blow at the false Liselotte.
You swing the blade with such ferocity that it splits the creature that once called itself Liselotte in two. Both half crumple in smoking piles of viscera.
Now only Rateater remains.
"HOW'S THAT FOR A WORTHY DEATH, LION'S MAIDEN?!"
“Fool” hisses the creature before you.
“We shall enjoy wearing your flesh…”
"YOU SHALL WEAR MY BLADE FIRST, SNAKE!"
Lygan screams, swinging the sword at the tentacled fiend.
The creature flows around your arcing blade and envelops you, holding you fast with its hateful tentacles.
“Do as I command or I shall slay you, Inquisitor.”
"ONLY HE DO I OBEY!"
Wriggling free of the tentacles, Lygan whirls the Princess blade about in a circle, roaring with bestial fury, before bringing it down hard atop the slimy devil.
The creature shrieks as it dies, its cries echoing through the courtyard.
Silence returns.
You are alone.
After gasping with the exertion, Lygan staggers over to the remains of Faugno.
Falling to his knees, he lets out a genuine sob, and is silent for a moment.
"You were the best of us, Faugno. The best of us. Ever-faithful, ever-loyal. May your soul rest forever in the Shimmering Fields, until I see you again there."
Lygan rises to his feet and takes up the Monster Hunter's harpoon once more.
Leaning the harpoon against a statue, Lygan takes up his Inquisitorial zweihänder — his gift to Faugno — and stabs it into the ground near where his friend fell.
He turns to the statue where he scratched his name in the salt, and adds some words.
HERE FELL FAUGNO, FAITHFUL PORTER, SLAYER OF THE SPIDER
Satisfied with his work, he takes up the porter's backpack and the harpoon, and examines the great doors to the heathen temple.
The doors are ornately carved of some ancient timber, strong enough to survive eons long exposure to brine and brimstone. On each door is a long, vertical bar of greened and corroded metal, perhaps once bronze; great barnacled handles. Inlaid into the wood of the door, designs of the same corroded material. What they once depicted is lost to the ravages of salt, now signifiers solely of the nature of that which you have reached: the salt-crusted heart of this hollowed earth.
Lygan runs an exploratory finger down the surface of the door. Then turns about to look for the crow, whom he has not seen since the fight began.
The door is unmoved by your caress. Your finger comes away salt-stained, as now is every part of you.
The bird you named Corax hops around the courtyard. He pecks Faugno's remains.
Lygan sits down with his back to one of the sea-serpent statues. Opening his pack, he takes out one of the skins, filled with the liquid from the strange pool with the fish.
He ponders it a moment, before taking a sip.
The liquid is cool and refreshing, almost painfully so. It is a tiny drop of the peace of that place it came from.
After taking a draught of the cool water, Lygan sighs with the instant sense of refreshment that comes from long-parched lips when they have been recently quenched.
At the base of the statue you rest against, just next to, you notice a small statue carved from red coral. It is a version of the same statue you rest against, in miniature form.
Looking at it a moment, Lygan narrows his eyes.
"Why, 'tis a foul heathen idol. Something the king of old failed to purge. Witness me, Corax, for thus begins the cleansing of this abominable place of false worship."
Lygan clambers to his feet, picks up the statuette with his gauntleted hand, and hurls it out into the lake of magma.
The statue clatters down into the fire, never to be seen again by living eyes.
Satisfied with his act of desecration, Lygan returns to his spot beneath the giant statue, lies down and closes his eyes.
You have never been so exhausted. So tested in body, mind and spirit.
Shadows haunt the edges of your vision; whispers crawl the peripheries of hearing. And everywhere the all pervasive sting of salt.
Corax stands watch as sleep steals over you.
But it is a fitful and broken sleep. Haunted by those you have known, those you have trusted, their faces tearing open to reveal other things. Things from the edges of sanity and beyond.
Upon waking, after several hours at most, you check your belongings over, now habit, ritual, of starting the day. The salt has gotten into your medicine chest, ruining its contents.
At this point if you could give up the very salt of your blood, your tears, for a life free from the substance, you'd consider it.
Sighing deeply, Lygan removes the salt-ruined chest from the backpack and kicks it away.
"Come, Corax. Now our real work begins..."
Shouldering the pack, securing the Princess' sword in its scabbard, and planting Fergus' harpoon in the salt next to the doors, he takes one of the great brine-encrusted handles between his fingers and heaves at it with all his strength.
At first the door is still despite your efforts. Then there is groaning and cracking, as if a sheet of ice were under great strain. The gates of salt budge an inch, and water, brine, seeps from the gap, spreading out before you. You haul on the door, dragging it open further and a wash of the foul, toxic liquid floods the courtyard, dampening your boots. But the door stands open.
You peer through the doorway. A corridor with a low, arched ceiling extends a little way ahead to a short flight of stairs leading up. Eerie patches of phosphorescence cling to the walls, rending the scene in eldritch hues.
Corax caws, his call echoing into the spaces beyond.
Lygan takes up the harpoon in his left hand, and draws the Princess' blade with his right. Cautiously, he enters the corridor beyond, and moves towards the stairs.
While the air of the courtyard outside the chapel, and the bridge beyond had been dry and sulphurous from the river of fire, in here it is cold and damp. The concentration of salt in the air is significantly greater than that which you have experienced so far. Your lips dry and crack, your eyes sting.
The sounds of water, dripping, running, and perhaps in the distance roaring, punctuate the stillness of the place.
You climb the five steps at the end of the short corridor and emerge into a larger hall. The vaulted ceiling no longer has any decoration except for the salt-encrusted remnants of now-extinct molluscs. The path leads straight ahead, it is perhaps two yards wide. On either side, running parallel to it are two canals of stinking brine. Four transversal channels filter brine from the side canals. They disappear into narrow tunnels separated from the gallery by walls with stone-carved sea serpent heads, through whose mouths the brine flows.
Ahead, the path terminates in a pool of brine fed by, or feeding, the canals. Columns appear to rise from it, though they are shrouded in gloom.
Just before the pool, on either side of the hall, standing over the canals are large, arched doorways, containing a staircase which spirals up into obscurity.
Lygan paces cautiously along this narrow path between the canals, towards the columned pool, then pauses between the doorways, looking left and right. He places the harpoon on the ground, gently, then reaches into his pocket, drawing out the magic stones. Rubbing them together in his hand, causing them to fizz and spark, he lifts them up and holds them first toward the left door, then the right, watching for any sign of orange glow from the spherical pebble.
The stones remain inert.
Lygan tucks the stones back in his pocket and picks up the harpoon.
Uncertain, he continues, for now, toward the pool.
This would appear to have once been the nave of the chapel. The air is colder still, here. The walls are adorned with reliefs of marine scenes in which a congregation seems to throw offerings to the sea. In the center of the nave, there is a perfectly circular pit, now filled with brine. At the other end of the nave rows of pillars lead to a platform from which rises a stone altar.
What eons dead congregants held heretical worship here?
The walls to your left and right, those flanking the columns and pool, each hold a doorway. In the wall to your left the door is closed. The doorway to your right, holds no door, the yawning aperture leading to dimness and obscurity.
Grimacing at the sight of blasphemous images of false worship, Lygan steps around the pool, and makes his way toward the dais with its stone altar, bracing himself to behold yet more abominations that defy the veneration due only to the Two-Headed Basilisks.
Upon the altar, there is a tablet fitted into a recess in the centre. A wind instrument made from a seashell rests on a stone stand anchored to the altar.
Lygan leans closer and examines the tablet.
The tablet is of ancient weathered stone. Carved upon its surface are words of an archaic and long dead tongue, yet somehow, intrinsically, you understand their meaning. The tablet reads:
"Your dominion is the beginning and the end. Take us back to the Whole."
Lygan's eyes widen in horror. He whispers to Corax.
"Blasphemous images were bad enough, Corax. But this...false scripture...this wretched appeal to a false god...it is more than we can bear. We have seen enough. This place is a nest of unholiest defilement; well did your Master's Lord do to desecrate this sanctuary of sin in aeons past. But...speaking of your master...tell me, Corax...I have been led to believe, perhaps falsely, perhaps for foul intent...that Ibrakhir possessed a certain grimoire. Know you where I might find this?"
Corax dips his head in what appears to be a nod then caws.
Lygan looks him straight in his beady black eye.
"Show me."
Corax stares back into your eye but does not move. He clicks his beak and adjusts his feathers.
"You wish for something in return, my friend? I have a silver coin. I know not what you would do with such a thing, though I have heard your kin enjoy such things. They certainly do me no good down here."
Lygan reaches into his pouch and draws out a single piece of silver, holding it up before the bird.
Corax pecks at your fingers. It would appear he will not be bought.
"Very well."
Lygan returns the coin to his pouch.
"Inquisitors have many tools with which to extract information, Corax. It appears I may need to resort to such."
Lygan unfastens the leather tube containing the scroll of Enochian Syntax and draws it out.
Reading the scroll, Lygan commands the crow.
"Guide me to the grimoire of Ibrakhir."
Corax caws in your face and snaps at your nose with his beak. He then rises in a fury of feathers and, unwilling, flies back the way you came. You rush to follow him back down the hall with the canals. He banks and flies through the mouth of one of the stone-carved sea serpent heads through which flows a branch of one of the canals, and disappears from sight. His indignant caws echo back to you until they are lost by distance.
Lygan approaches the sea-serpent's head, listening to the fading cries of the bird.
"Well, well..."
Lygan once more rubs the magic stones together and holds them up to the serpent's mouth, watching the sphere for signs of light.
The round stone takes on a dull but definite orange hue.
Nodding at the stones, Lygan returns them to his pocket. He sheathes the sword, clutches tightly to the harpoon and wades into the canal towards the gaping maw of the sea-serpent.
The water of the canal is icy cold and burns with salinity. It comes up to your hip and you wince with each step. Beyond the carved serpent head you hear the sound of water cascading, as if falling from height.
Lygan cautiously crawls into the mouth, bracing his nerves all the while, breathing hard to keep himself steady as he inches towards what appears to be mortal terror.
The narrow passage proceeds onward into the ill-lit gloom. You follow it for maybe a dozen yards, with each step the roaring noise coming nearer. Soon you see frothing and foaming waters ahead. You are approaching the apex of a waterfall.
Peering down into the frothing darkness, Lygan calls:
"Corax?!"
The din of the waterfall drowns out any other legible sound.
Lygan takes hold of the pectoral medallion of HE.
"There are many things I will do for you, Verhu, Gorgh...but going after that damned bird down the throat of this serpent is a leap too far. I will find another way."
The Inquisitor turns and retreats back to the hallway between the canals. There he considers the two doors.
Studying them both, and not being able to decide which to explore first, on a whim of fate he opts to enter the right-hand door.
The staircase within the doorway spirals upward. You climb the stairs, for a long time, wondering how low in the earth you have journeyed so far and where the top of this staircase will put you in its strata.
Eventually you come to the top of the stair and out into a small, square, high ceilinged room, from which hangs an enormous bell. It is made of a greenish material, similar to jade. Its surface is covered with reliefs depicting religious scenes of a congregation of men and women holding masks over their faces with one hand, and raising the other as if praising the sound of the bell. In front of it, a kneeling man without a mask, surrounded by spherical objects.
The clapper of the bell is an opalescent sphere, who's surface shimmers and gleams. The stem it is attached to seems to be made of coral, brittle and thin.
Once again feeling repulsion at the markings of religions not his own, Lygan nerves himself to study the shimmering sphere of the clapper, being careful not to nudge it and thus ring the damned thing.
It is some form of giant pearl, or similar object, radiating an aura of soft light. It would seem that a gentle tug would be enough to free it from the stem it dangles from.
Reaching up and grabbing the coral stalk with his left hand, as one grabs a snake behind the head, Lygan stretches out his gauntleted right hand and attempts to pluck or twist off the opalescent sphere from its stem.
With a gentle crack, the object comes free. It is surprisingly light, yet feels potent with energy.
Holding it in both hands, Lygan regards it with some curiosity, before placing it in his backpack.
This done, he searches about the belltower for any other objects or items of interest.
The tower room is empty besides the bell. There are window frames in the three walls of the room, but they are filled with compacted salt.
Glancing at these and wondering at the power that caused this land to be buried so, Lygan returns back down the stairs and explore the doorway opposite, across the hallway.
You make your way up the opposite stairs which likewise corkscrew up into the dead salt crust of this sunken land. At the top of the stairs there is an identical room and bell, however the clapper of the bell has fallen to the floor and cracked. Its lustre is faded, its glow gone. You observe at the end of the stalk of coral a tiny nacreous bulb.
Lygan looks between the broken clapper and the tiny bulb and ponders at the implications of this, before returning to the base of the tower, and to the columned pool in the nave.
The nave is still. The sound of dripping water and the soft, rippling light along the walls endows the space with a sense of peace. But if this chapel is truly the bitter heart of these salted wastes then it can be naught but a false peace.
Lygan ponders the doors leading from here. Following his instinct, he enters the open doorway to the right of the chamber, opting to try the closed doors opposite at a later time.
Through the doorway and down a wide passage, a long, dark gallery spirals downward into a vault carved into the rock, partially collapsed. Water flows among the rocks, forming a clear spring in the center of the chamber. Fossils of trilobites and strange mollusks cover the walls. In the center of the spring lies a large iridescent ammonite shell.
Lygan cocks his head to one side with curiosity and cautiously descends down the spiral toward the pool. Harpoon in hand, he walks through the water toward the shell and examines it.
The water of the pool lacks the sting of the brine canals. It has a light blue glow to it, reminiscent of the chamber you rested in before your companions revealed themselves as the imposters they were.
The shell is hard and shines with a similar brilliance to the pearl object you took from the clock tower. Could it be broken up and shipped to the surface, you have no doubt that a skilled craftsman could craft fine weapons and armour from the material.
Within the shell there is a viscous substance. Upon closer inspection, it resembles the fleshy part of a mollusk. It has a vaguely humanoid shape.
Frowning, Lygan jabs the mollusk with his harpoon.
The wet, gelatinous thing shrivels and moans slightly.
"What are you?"
It does not, perhaps cannot, reply.
Lygan, equally disgusted and distrustful, runs it through with the harpoon.
The creature, if indeed it be a creature, moans once more, then is still, pale blue blood seeping from the wound you inflicted.
Satisfied the creature—whatever it was—is dead, Lygan explores around the pool for anything else of interest.
There is little else of interest in the cave, though that is not to diminish the lustre of the enormous shell, or the presence of apparently fresh water in this blighted place.
Lygan stoops and refills the one waterskin he drank from earlier, then plugs the skin and returns back to the nave above.
The nave remains still. The eerie core of this blasphemy of stone, salt and coral.
Lygan moves across the nave to try out the closed doors opposite.
The doors are heavy barnacled stone slabs. They move with a grinding crunch which breaks the stillness of the nave.
It takes significant effort to open them, but you have not come this far to be defeated by a door.
The doors open into a large square hall. The floor of the hall is almost entirely taken up with a large square pond, which leaves only a narrow walkway running along the edges of the room. Pillars again run along the edge of the pool, supporting a lower ceiling than that of the nave.
The pool is dark and fronded with seaweed and algae.
In the center of the wall to your left is a large ornate door, standing slightly ajar.
On the wall opposite, across the pond from you, a partially collapsed doorway leads to an area beyond.
On the right hand side wall you see that the water of the pond is slowly flowing out through a door sized hole. You cannot visibly see the water level lower, but you imagine, with time, this pond shall empty into some space below.
Lygan proceeds carefully around the edge of the square pond, to the ornate door on the left.
Your steps echo through the hall. Perhaps these are the first sounds to break these unhallowed silences in time untold.
The surface of the pond remains unbroken. The algae and weeds drifting imperceptibly towards the slow waterfall on the opposite wall.
You approach the ornate door. The door is carved with images of mighty creatures, enormous men before which cower and worship the congregants you have seen in relief recurring through this abominable chapel.
You peer through the partially open door.
Beyond is a smaller chamber, perhaps rectangular in shape. In the gloom of the far wall you see standing a row of four enormous humanoid statues.
Lygan attempts to push the door open further, in order to squeeze inside.
Shouldering the door forward to widen the gap, it shudders from the force and then swings free of whatever was restricting its movement, swinging wide.
The room is small, and as you suspected, rectangular in shape. It has partially collapsed on the left hand side. rubble burying more of the room and perhaps more of the statues.
Approaching the hulking statues you observe that although each conforms to general proportions, the details on them vary to greater and lesser degrees. All have dome-like heads and thick limbs and chests. Some have ridges of spines, some spiral patterns of barnacles. But each shares a specific feature in common beside humanoid physiology. A spherical recess in the forehead region of the dome.
A spherical recess which, at a glance, appears to be of similar, if not identical, proportions to the nacreous sphere you found in the bell tower.
Lygan cautiously approaches the nearest of these statues and, placing the harpoon down, fetches the opalescent sphere from his backpack. Cradling this under his arm, he attempts to climb up the front of the statue, using whatever hand and footholds he can find on its ridged surface, with the intention of inserting the sphere into the recess.
The sphere slides into the recess with a small pop, then settles a little deeper. There is no immediate reaction and you take a step back. As soon as you have thought, the glowing of the sphere intensifies and there is a sudden hiss, as of gasses releasing. Plates and invisible seams all over the statue move and slide open revealing a hollow cavity within the core of the statue. The cavity is in the shape of a human body. Small lights and jewelled nubs glitter at each articulation point of the negative space within. The statue shudders with micro tremors, as if now charged with a powerful energy.
Lygan examines the thing for a moment, narrowing his eyes in suspicion, then picks up his harpoon and backs out of the room, retreating into the chamber with the square pool. This he carefully walks around, and peaks through the collapsed doorway, opposite where he first entered the pool-room.
Over the rubble you can see a passage extending into the gloom.
Lygan clambers up and over the rubble, into the passage beyond.
Beyond the passage is maybe a dozen yards long. There is a door in each wall, both also partially blocked up with rubble, and one at the end of the corridor which is closed.
The walls are carved with strange runes reminiscent of light reflected on uneven water.
Lygan studies the runes on the walls, on the lookout for more evidence of heresy, blasphemy or other profane things that glorify false gods.
The runes are as meaningless to you as the play of light on water.
Lygan scoffs and shakes his head, before continuing forward to the door at the end of the hall, which he attempts to open.
You push the door open and release a small wave of brine, apparently the room beyond had been partially flooded.
The brine now reaches up to the knees. Within the room, which is small and square, rows of perfectly arranged stone shelves fill the space. They hold jars made of a smooth, dark material with blue veins, resembling marble. These jars feature intricately detailed relief carvings of faces.
Wading through the brine, Lygan examines each of the jars in turn, studying the faces, trying to gain some inkling of understanding of who the people who built this place once were.
The jars are sealed, the faces unfamiliar.
Behind one of the shelves on the rear wall you discover a lever, clearly designed to blend into the material of the wall.
"Ha."
Lygan reaches out to pull the lever.
The lever pulls with a sandy crunch, there is a grinding sound and the entire shelf moves forward from the wall revealing a small passage with a narrow flight of steps leading down into darkness.
"What have we here?"
Lygan picks up one of the jars and examines it, looking for an opening.
The lid of the jar is sealed with wax, but yields to your prying.
Inside you find a milky-white orb suspended in a viscous, translucent liquid.
Lygan reaches into the jar with his gauntleted hand and pulls out the orb, holding it between his fingers.
It has the look of an embryo, imbued with foul corruption. It writhes and pulses slightly in your hand.
Lygan scowls with unbridled disgust and attempts to crush the thing violently between iron-clad fingers.
It is rubbery and surprisingly robust, constantly slipping between your fingers. You have a hard time even keeping it in your hand, as if somehow it had agency of its own, and sought to escape your grip.
Lygan, realising this, attempts to slip it back into the jar from whence he removed it, and place the lid back thereon.
You struggle for a moment, but succeed in returning it to the vessel it came from, sealing back into the lid.
The implication of a room full of these jars, each containing one of those things sends a chill down your spine.
Lygan places the jar back on the shelf and recoils. He then carefully steps over the threshold into the recently opened aperture and descends the flight of steps beyond.
You descend the stairs into the dimness, the glow of phosphorescence diminishes until it is all but extinguished.
The stairs continue down before you in almost total darkness. You slow your steps, reconsidering your descent when suddenly light returns to the stairwell, but it is not the eerie green light you have become used to, instead it is a soft white light.
It takes you a moment to understand, but then you realise: the light is coming from the sword you carry.
Lygan draws the blade from its scabbard, turning it over in his hand.
A sound fills the air. A sonorous chiming. The voice which you heard in your head when you faced the dragon Maramagdus rings once more in the halls of your mind.
“You who wield this blade, who has sworn his true purpose, you approach now the halls wherein dwell my love.
You will soon face a choice, to save all through sacrifice, to sacrifice all through ignorance, or to maintain the current stasis and in doing so doom my love and myself.
The choice is yours to make. I will aid you where I can, I will hinder you if I must.”
"I will do what I must, Princess, to fulfil the vow I did make upon this thy blade."
The blade does not reply.
The ancient stairs eventually spiral down through a low doorway and disappear beneath a floor of wet sand which rims a wide pool of stinking brine. The rocky walls of the chamber you emerge into have a porous texture with deep holes, a hand span in diameter, riddling its surface.
As you step onto the sand, the light of the sword fades, replaced by the dull green gloom present in so many of these wretched spaces, infested as they are with luminous slimes and sickly glowing pelagic crusts.
Just to your right stands a doorway, crusted thickly with salt and long dead sea-life.
Across the pool stalactites fang the mouth of a low, wide opening. You hear water trickling from that opening. The pool itself is grey and milky in colour. Slowly pulsing bulbous shapes are just visible lining what you take to be the bottom.
Keeping well away from the water, Lygan investigates the door.
The doorway is a rough arch carved into the pitted rock of the cavern wall. Set into this arch is a wooden door, mounted on hinges fixed directly to the wall. Years of exposure to this salt-saturated environment have caused a thick crust to form over the door, fusing it to the doorway which holds it. Small colonies of tidal life have taken root in places across this accreted surface, urchins, anemones and other, less easily named things.
An iron handle, swollen with rust and barnacles protrudes from the gritty surface of the door’s crust.
Lygan, determined, grasps the encrusted handle in his gauntleted hand and attempts to shift it.
The door is unyielding to your efforts.
Growling with impatience and frustration, Lygan slams his boot into the door.
The blow you strike is as impotent as your rage. For now, at least, the door has won this battle of wills.
Lygan turns away from the door and, cautiously, approaches the natural opening, and the sound of dripping water beyond.
Circling round the reeking brine pool in this chamber and approaching the opening, you see beyond the hanging mineral spikes, a second chamber, lower than this. The sound of water is from the pool in this chamber, slowly feeding into numerous further pools of brine, irregularly scattered around this adjoining chamber which are also fed in turn by a stream of water falling from some higher place out of sight.
A set of steps carved into the rock near you descends down into the lower chamber.
The nearest pool is large, as large as the chamber you are in, a causeway runs across it, separating it from further lower pools beyond.
Lygan, assessing the situation, turns around, crosses the cavern and examines the holes that pockmark the wall near the stairs.
Peering into a number of the holes, you see they are the domain of crabs all of size and colouration. The retreat when they see you peering into their habitats. You notice, deep within one of the holes, another of those semi-luminous pearl-like spheres, like the one you inserted into the statue on the floor above.
"Aha!"
Lygan repeatedly jabs the harpoon blade into the hole, hoping to crush the crabs within.
Crunching sounds from within indicate you may have crushed some of them.
Lygan checks inside the hole for any signs of remaining crustaceous life.
Nothing moves within the cavity.
Grimacing, Lygan inserts his hand into the cavity and attempts to grasp the nacreous sphere.
In a gesture reliant on equal parts faith and defiance, you succeed in retrieving both the sphere, and your arm from the hole in the wall.
Lygan, first shuddering at having to insert his arm into such a horrible space, smiles at the prize retrieved, before slipping it into his backpack. Having done so, the Inquisitor attempts to cross the slippery ridge to the right of the lower pool.
Clambering, hand and feet over the slime crusted ridge, attempting to circumnavigate the brine pool below. But the surface is treacherous, and you slip and plunge into the very brine you sought to avoid. The water burns every exposed part of your body, as if seeking ingress to your heart through the very pores of your skin. You thrash and flounder, making your way to the causeway you spied from above.
Things in the water, gelatinous and slow, move about you.
You emerge onto the rocks of the causeway in time to see hands reaching, faces staring after you. Only, they are not faces. They are conglomerations of tentacles, writhing and seeking.
This would appear to be some kind of birthing pool for those creatures which stood in as your allies, your companions.
"GET AWAY FROM ME!"
The Inquisitor shrieks as he staggers, dripping, out of the salinised water, pointing the shining Princess blade at the foul creatures therein.
The creatures shrink back with juvenile howls beneath the roiling surface of the water.
Breathing heavily with horror and disgust and shock at the fall, though relieved at the retreat of the sea-creatures, the inquisitor reassesses his surroundings.
You are standing on the rocky causeway. At the far end of it an ornate doorway is carved into the rock:
To your right is the pool you just emerged from, the surface unstill, the water clouded with agitation. To your left, a small scree of pebble and shell slopes down to another pool, from which emerge the bones of gargantuan creatures, eroded and colonised by the legions of the salt scourge and its only natural predator, time.
Sweeping back his sopping, salt-encrusted hair and taking up his two weapons, one in each hand, Lygan narrows his eyes toward the doorway ahead and proceeds carefully down the causeway toward it, slipping into its gaping black maw.
You emerge into a circular chamber. The floor is even, oddly so, and in the centre of the chamber, just narrower than the circumference of the room, a uniform recess in the stone, maybe half a foot deep. You peer upwards and see you are at the bottom on a shaft. The ceiling is lost in gloom but water drips and tickles from the unknown height above.
In the wall of the chamber you count four doors other than the one you came from.
To your left, a grand double doorway, engraved with more images of feverish worship stands closed.
To your right a less grand single and unadorned single doorway is also closed.
Opposite you are two more doorways.
The left hand doorway is open and you see what you suspect is a stairway leading down into murk.
The right hand doorway is open and a passage leads from it likewise into shadow and gloom.
And from this right hand doorway you hear, unmistakably, the sound of Corax cawing.
"Corax!"
Lygan quickly moves across the circular chamber toward the right-hand doorway and proceeds through.
You emerge onto a wide rocky shelf in a large cavern. The shelf extends to left and right, around twists in the rock face, obscuring where each way may lead.
Ahead of you is a large pool of brine, fed by a waterfall from above.
Protruding from the pool are twisting limbs of coral, great pronged antlers of the stuff, forming and mighty and yet mournful forest.
Shadows of reef fish dart among the submerged parts of these trunks of coral. Lights glow from segments of the still further obscured beneath the surface.
Corax perches upon a rock near where you have entered.
"There you are!"
Lygan approaches the bird.
"I've been looking for you. Is this where Ibrakhir's grimoire can be found?"
Corax caws, then scratches his head.
Glancing at the coral again, you notice something very odd indeed. It is translucent, as if it were only partially here.
And then you realise why this coral forest feels so mournful.
It is a ghost forest. Insubstantial as the light which it emanates.
Further, you notice that the rock Corax waits upon partially obscures a hole, wider than a man, in the floor of the cavern.
Lygan carefully clambers forward toward this hole and peers inside.
The hole descends perhaps four feet. A tunnel appears to lead off from the bottom in a direction opposite to the pool of the ghost coral.
Rough hand and foot holds are carved into the sides of the shaft.
Lygan sheaths the Princess' sword, leaves the harpoon by the side of the hole, and carefully lowers himself into it.
You descend to the bottom of the shaft with surprising grace.
The light from the glowing coral ghosts does not reach to the tunnel ahead; it extends before you in total darkness.
"Will you aid me now, Princess?"
Lygan crawls forward into the deeper darkness.
The sword glows softly in answer, gently illuminating the way.
"You have my gratitude."
The Inquisitor crawls deeper along the tunnel.
The passage is short and opens out into a space perhaps three yards across. It is cluttered with detritus of all kinds, as if some impossible sea gathered all of its deposits, man made and otherwise upon this tiny point of shore.
Lygan begins rummaging through the debris.
You find, among the detritus, a ladle of a most curious design. Curiouser still is that it appeals to contain a ladleful of some kind of stew, still steaming and smelling rich and delicious.
Suddenly conscious of the fact he's consumed nothing but water today, Lygan feels desperately hungry, and holds the ladle to his mouth, welcoming the stew with relish.
It is as it smells, delicious.
A creaking, cracking noise alerts your attention. You spin and behold, fused to the wall of the small cave, a humanoid figure, although manifold corals protrude from different parts of his body, and barnacles riddle his skin.
He opens his mouth but all that comes out is a dry, crackling wheeze.
Lygan's eyes widen in alarm.
"Who are you?!"
The man turns his head spasmodically towards you, his jaw moving as if to sound words, but no words escape his withered, salt-ruined lips.
"I'm sorry. May your soul reach the Shimmering Fields."
Lygan draws the Princess' blade and attempts to sever the wretch's head.
The blade separates his head from his body with little effort. You imagine that perhaps the look on his face as you do so is one of gratitude, but you may be mistaken.
It’s then that you notice: in one of his ossified arms, he cradles an ancient and mighty tome.
With renewed excitement, Lygan attempts to wrench the tome free from the poor wretch's grip.
With a dry crunch the tome comes free from the poor, newly departed soul’s grip.
It is ancient beyond telling. Its pages are parched and crumbling, the vellum it is bound in issues ominous cracking noises as you open it, but holds firm.
Within, written a spidery hand, words scrawl across loose and crumbling pages.
You leaf through the grimoire, certain it is that which Drathamar, or the being which claimed to be him, sought.
The language is archaic but legible. Among the esoteric ramblings and inscrutable instructions and illustrations, you find several descriptions of powers you are vaguely familiar with.
Among the final sheaf of pages, words written in an unsteady hand and stained with spots of a substance darker than ink:
Ibrakhir’s Ritual.
Excitedly flicking through the pages of the tome by the light of the Princess' blade, Lygan scowls when he comes across an unclean spell—Daemon of Capillaries—prohibited by the Church, and promptly tears it out of the book, scrunching up the ancient parchment and tossing it aside. The rest of the codex he absorbs with delight, and takes great care in studying the words of Ibrakhir's Ritual, to find out precisely what the ancient sorcerer had penned, so long ago.
The first passages of the ritual appear to be a description of a creature, brought to the kingdom by some escaped prisoner of some deranged cult. A description of some being from the darkest depths of the Endless Sea. But the thing which the grimoire only once refers to by the name Enhydros is described as being of a scale and supposed power beyond comprehension and therefore straining the very bounds of heresy, as if it would occupy another strata of blasphemous aberration entirely, one reserved for those things and ideas too removed from heterodox conception to even be contemplated. In its descriptions of the being, the grimoire speaks of cycles of destruction, of eons long death, and all through these visions of doom, the recurrence of a single word: salt. As if the thing itself were some avatar of salt, or perhaps the reverse: that each grain of salt choking this land were the granulation of some terrible whole, each the dread seed of fecund and relentless death untold.
One passage in particular appears to quote from some source long since lost, names the creature as: The Primordial Brine, continuing:
"There is no today, nor ever, nor thereafter. Only salt. Unfathomable and inconceivable, like the depths of the sea. The memory of men drowns in its vastness. Until one day all is consumed, and the world returns to its origins in a Primordial Broth only to repeat History once more. A cycle that can be delayed, but not avoided. It awakens, devours, and returns to its slumber, only to awaken larger and more voracious."
The text then shifts into rumination and conjecture, passages erased and annotated with feverish intensity. Diagrams drawn and redrawn. Notes on experiments, failures and partial successes. And then, it seems, a breakthrough. underlined many times the words:
"Nothing burns brighter than a soul. And nothing holds more power than an icon."
A ritual proper is devised. A crown is conceived. A crown of salt, the very substance of the beast. A crown to seal it in the deep.
But then, hurried notes thereafter. Nothing went according to plan. The horror from the deep was neither banished nor destroyed, only sealed. And the kind and noble king was now trapped within his body by the crown of salt the ritual created. Bound in a prison of salt and flesh, in a constant state of corrosion and regeneration. And only his pain keeping the fathomless terror at bay, only his constant suffering, his mind-numbing agony, rendering the beast asleep.
"So much for your power, Drathamar."
Lygan closes the codex and cradles it under his arm, not unlike that poor wretch from whom he took it. He sheathes the blade and, awkwardly, worms his way out of the tunnel and attempts to climb back to the pool-flooded cavern with the spectral coral.
Your clamber back up the shaft lacks all of the grace and poise the descent had had, but still, you make it back to the chamber of the coral spirits unharmed.
Lygan searches for Corax.
Corax flutters back to the rock he had perched on before you descended. He looks at the crumbling grimoire you have retrieved and then at you, expectantly.
Lygan opens the grimoire to the page concerning Bestial Speech and attempts to read the formula for the spell.
The words you intone from the page of the grimoire echo weirdly in the chamber, the sound bouncing back and forth in an ever shrinking shell whose focal point is the bird before you. The rapidly shrinking shell of sound, barely visible to the naked eye save for a subtle vibrating of the air, soon disappears beneath corax' feathers.
The bird starts retching, as if to expel the stone of some fruit lodged in its throat. With the great hacking cough of a voice not belonging to its species the bird coughs:
"Fucking hell! What did you just do to me? Hang on...is that sound...OH HELLS THAT'S COMING OUT OF MY MOUTH!"
The bird hops around in agitation.
"Hello, little crow. Or so Maramagdus addressed you. If that old dragon was to be trusted, and trust him I do—he was right about the others, after all—then you are indeed the familiar of the sorcerer Ibrakhir, as I have surmised, are you not?"
The crow continues coughing and retching,
"Fucking disgusting, urgh! How vile! What's that? What are you asking me? Ibrakhir? Yes, yes, many years ago now. Look, am I stuck like this? This is fucking awful, I didn't mind dabbling in your piggy language, calling people 'Liars' to mess with them, but this is...this is so...undignified! Urgh, such ugly sounds!"
"Do not waste my time, crow; this spell will only last for a few moments, then you may return to your croaking! Tell me what happened here. Your master. The king. The princess. The Cantigaster. Enhydros. Everything."
"Tell me why I should, awk, after all, you're the arsehole who's hexed me twice today." The crow cocks its head to one side defiantly.
"I'll do it again if I must. Shall I, or will you cooperate this time?"
"Try it, rawk!"
The sword you carry suddenly glows but you hear nothing.
"Oh, nice to hear from you too" the crow says, apparently addressing the sword. "Fine, fine. But we're both agreed he's an insufferable prick, right?"
The sword glows softly and then the light from it vanishes. The crow chuckles.
"She agrees with me."
He turns his back to you.
"There isn't time to tell you half of it and you know or suspect much already. You found the grimoire, so that'll fill in a lot of gaps for you, so I can help you with big picture stuff. Now, ask."
"I wish to free the soul of the forgotten King, and reunite him with his Princess. Tell me what I must do."
You feel the sword vibrate and radiate warmth.
The crow dips his head.
"Rawk! A noble goal. To do so you must take his place. You must slay the king and take his crown, then you will become that which is known as Cantigaster, bane of Enhydros."
"Take me to him."
Lygan considers a moment.
"And when I resume his place...please...Corax...if I may call you thus...take my Basilicus back to Saltburg. Take it to Felian, the innkeep, where first I found you. He will understand."
"Ehk! I will." caws the crow and then he takes wing, flying back through the doorway which led to his chamber.
The voice of the bade chimes in your ear.
"If what you say is true, I shall help thee, Lygan. The king will not know you and he will neither speak, nor listen. His mind long since ruined from his awful task, the task which shall become yours if you free him and take up the crown."
The blade continues: "Know fully that which you seek to do, Lygan. When you don the crown you will arrive at death's border, but you shall not cross. There you shall dwell and thy soul shall be riven there, over and over till the end of time, or till the another comes to free you. Know this will be your fate, as it was the fate of my love."
"I am ready, Princess. All is as Verhu has predicted. I seek only his glory."
Lygan closes the grimoire, tucks it beneath his arm, picks up the harpoon where he left it, and follows the bird.
You return to the circular chamber. The crow perches on the lintel of the great double doors. He caws at you. It would appear his command of human speech has ebbed, once more.
The blade chimes softly.
“Through these doors your fate awaits. You will greet death, or forever be shunned by it. Are you prepared, Lygan?”
"No one is ever truly prepared for what awaits them, Princess. If it were otherwise, then Maramagdus would not have wrought thy doom in ages past. But all will be as HE hath foretold. At the very least, you shall meet your love again, and finally fulfill what that ancient dragon once forestalled."
Lygan pauses a second.
"Hmm. There is one more thing I will do."
The inquisitor removes the scroll of Enochian Syntax from its leather tube, unrolls it and tucks it between the pages of the grimoire for easier access.
As you pull the scroll from its tube, the blade chimes a final time:
“I caution you Lygan, my king’s mind is gone completely. There is nothing to compel, nothing to control. He is savagery unbound, grief unchecked. His ferocity will know no pause, his attacks will yield to no logic.”
"Well then; it seems violence alone will determine the outcome. So be it."
Lygan leans the harpoon against the door and opens the grimoire to the spell Aegis of Sorrow. This he begins to read aloud, in preparation.
You feel the effect of the scroll upon your body immediately. A terrible potency flows through you. The fibres of your muscles knot and harden into dense, dark ropes. Your skin thickens to the consistency of cured leather, yet it remains supple and flexible.
You do not increase in size or stature, but rather density, growing inward, a riot of curdling blood; a temporary cancer given free rein, directing its violence at the world.
You have become a fleeting icon of twisted flesh. What better way to meet with the icon of salt?
Lygan tosses the grimoire to the ground and throws down his backpack along with it. He no longer requires either. Taking up the harpoon of the true Fergus Fergusson and the Blade of the Promised Princess, he wrenches open the double doors and strides in to meet whatever fate the Two-Headed Basilisks have foreseen.
You advance into the humid dark beyond, the blade lighting your way.
A small flight of steps lead down into a narrow passage, the coldness here more pronounced than in the previous spaces. The sting of the sea in the air unmistakable.
Just for a moment you believe you see a figure ahead, but it vanishes into the gloom beyond the light of the sword. The passage opens out onto a rough circle of rock, overhanging nothing. Beneath it, into this void flows a mighty waterfall.
In the centre of the circular outcrop stands an odd basin, irregular and black like the surface of an oyster, watery light emanating from it's core:
Across the abyss, the chasm filled only with roiling water and nothingness, there is a doorway or gate fixed into the wall, the arch of it fringed with salt crystals. A circular aperture in its centre oozes foul, glowing brine which dribbles down into the abyss to mingle with the vapour of the waterfall.
And there, to your side, head bowed and kneeling, as if simultaneously readying to strike and already vanquished, the Forgotten King. His crown, a sigil of horrendous barbarism, is fused to his skull, brine welling from wounds its crystals tear in his ruined flesh. Flesh which reknits itself around those same crystals even as you watch. Each cell of his being a battlefield between man and salt, will and oblivion.
The brine runs down his eroded, craggy face and pools on the floor by his knees. Mingled with it, perhaps, tears for his fate, or tears of relief at your coming.
He breathes, deep and rasping. Air passes through his burned and shredded lungs and mists out into the cold air of that dead place.
In his hand, his weight rested upon it as if he would use it to rise, a blade identical to that which is in your own hand.
His hands are clawed. From his back protrude great skeins of salt. What regal garb he wore when he first came to this place is now rags.
If there is man still present in this unholy thing, this ruin, it truly inhabits a living hell.
Lygan speaks.
"Behold, O Cantigaster! O king of old! Your time of vigil draws to an end. Fear not, ancient one, for I have come not to destroy your guard against the devil they call Enhydros, but to relieve you of it! To take the burden of thy cursed crown of salt upon my own brow! As a token of my sincerity, I bring with me the blade of your betrothed, your promised love. The time has come to surrender thy watch and join your bride, that you may live happily, together at last, in the Shimmering Fields. Come, let us end your pain!"
Lygan takes the harpoon in the gauntlet of wrath and hurls it at the poor creature.
Your aim is strong and true. The harpoon flies from your hand and embeds itself deep in the abdomen of the king where he kneels. He roars with rage, knowing too much of pain to suffer from the wound, knowing only that something threatens his crown, something threatens the peace he suffers to uphold.
And quicker than you imagine possible, he is on his feet and charging at you. He brings his sword down in a vicious arc while raking at you with the claws of his free hand. Both blows connect, and would have cloven you in two were it not for the vitality the Aegis of Sorrow has granted you.
You have each left terrible wounds on the other, yet before your eyes you see the wound the harpoon struck begin to reknit and close over.
Death hovers close in this abyssal chamber.
The dread king opens his awful maw and vomits a torrent of corrosive brine upon you, searing your flesh.
Lygan, snarling with the fury of pain, takes the Princess' blade in both hands and swings at the Cantigaster.
But your swing is wide, fuelled by fury rather than precision. The king heaves himself out of its path and readies for another assault, the wounds on his body crystallising further.
He steps toward you, swift and terrible, clamping his reeking jaws upon your shoulder. You gasp and stagger back, bleeding freely from the wound.
Lygan, roaring, sweeps in with the Princess' blade for another assault.
Your blow connects with the king, catching him beneath his ribcage and cleaving upwards an almighty gash, rending salt, flesh and bone, from bottom rib to shoulder. Raw and steaming innards are exposed, glittering organs sparkle from their crystalline cages. The king's head slumps a moment. Then he looks at you, or you believe he does, so gone are his eyes it's impossible to tell for sure.
What feels certain though is that whichever of you lands the next blow will surely kill the other.
Death blooms like silence all around you.
A thing beyond the oozing gate, most great and terrible, throbs in anticipation.
You ready yourself for that which is to come.
Panting and bleeding, Lygan speaks once more to the creature.
"Time to go, my friend. Your work here is done. Go be with your love. HE has foreseen all."
With a sudden burst of strength, Lygan drives the blade into the Cantigaster's chest.
Time slows.
There is a gentle glow of light, radiant as the morning, as the tip of the sword pierces the Forgotten King's heart.
He does not roar. He does not rage.
The sword drops from his hand.
He reaches and grasps his hands around the blade which is killing him, which is freeing him.
He sighs and lowers his head.
The salt crystals around the base of the crown crack and fracture. It begins to slide from his head.
"Now we go, Lygan. Time to keep your promise."
The light from the blade begins to dim.
"Farewell, Princess. Farewell, King."
Lygan staggers over to the dying Cantigaster and pulls out the salinised crown from the ruin of the failing flesh which supports it. Holding it up, he looks upon it.
The crown weeps brine freely. As you hold it and the light dims you become aware of the gate across the chasm. Something terrible beyond it awaits your decision.
Gazing into the crown's crystalline depths for a moment, Lygan pulls the Basilicus from off his neck and holds it dangling from his fist toward the doors at the top of the stairs.
"Come, Corax. It is time."
Corax flies down the hall to your outstretched hand. He rests on your wrist. He dips his head once, then takes the leather cord of the Basiliscus in his beak.
He flies from your wrist and out of sight.
"Liar."
He reaches into his pockets, takes out the stone magnets, holds them up for a moment, then tosses them over the edge of the waterfall into the black void below.
Sighing, he holds up the crown above his head, looking up at it.
"The road to salvation lies through mortification of the flesh. The apocalypse is to be met with eyes wide open. All praise Verhu, beaming with delight! All praise the fire which burns all! And the darkness shall swallow the darkness."
Lygan lowers the crown onto his brow.
As soon as the crown touches your head, pain.
All you have ever known, all you will ever know, becomes searing, burning, wretched pain. It races down the pathways of your mind, tearing away at all that was you, your memories eroding before it like words written in sand, washed away by the tide.
There will be no respite. You chose the path knowing this. You have become the mortification of the flesh, incarnate. Servant of Verhu, Keeper of Enhydros.
And that which sleeps in the abyss yonder sleeps still, lulled by your cries, your pain, as your skin tears itself apart over and over upon the salt crystals growing within. Your crown transmitting your dreadful lullaby to that which sleeps in the darkness of the sea.
Inquisitor Lygan is no more.
You are now the keeper of the Primordial Brine, watcher of the Abyssal Gate, and the name you have taken will continue to be whispered throughout this salt-ruined land. Cantigaster.
Eternity beckons and only one task remains.
To suffer without end.
Epilogue
A single black feather drifts across the salt wastes. A tiny scar of moving dark upon that dead and ancient land.
The town of Saltburg persists. Kept afloat by the steady stream of fool-hardy adventurers, glory seekers and religious fanatics who have heard whispers of a defiled church and a crown of salt.
The Jug and Crown, functional hub of the town, stands defiant and welcoming, an oasis in these howling wastes.
Behind the bar, among salt stained bottles and curing meats, hangs a graven image of HIM, in a small shrine. No one pays it much mind. The bar is adorned with such trinkets.
A young cleric enters, face reddened and raw from many days journeying through the salt plains to reach this place. He dusts salt from his robes and looks about.
At the table in the centre of the bar sit two rough looking men, their features tell a story of a long time spent in these parts.
One of these men turns to the other and mutters:
"You know, Leo, I've always had a soft spot for aiding men of the cloth..."
He raises his voice,
"Ho there, friend! What brings you to these parts? Come sit with me and my partner here, the first round is on us!"
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